Oil Prices Cause Paving Costs To Rise

Warning to motorists this summer: Rough road ahead.

From New England — where the punishing winters leave roads rutted, cracked and riddled with potholes in the spring — to the Deep South, repaving projects are being canceled or postponed because of the rising price of oil, which is used to make asphalt as well as diesel for dump trucks, steamrollers and other heavy equipment.

Around Cabot, a seven-mile stretch of U.S. Route 2 northeast of Montpelier, a main route across northern New England, has been dropped from the state’s list of paving projects for the year because bids have been coming in higher than budgeted.

Business Week