FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  Randy Cerchie, Lee County Department of Transportation
               (239) 479-8573

STRINGFELLOW ROAD REPAVING WILL CAUSE DELAYS OVER NEXT MONTH

FORT MYERS, Fla. (November 3, 2003) - Lee County is repaving Stringfellow Road on Pine Island over the next month so residents and visitors should expect some delays.

The county, however, is using a process called "Hot in Place Paving" that will help limit some of the congestion.

The repaving of the two-lane Stringfellow Road will be done from St. James City to Bokeelia - a stretch of about 14 miles.

The project could start as early as Wednesday (Nov. 5). It will start at St. James City and work its way north to Bokeelia. It could take 30 days to complete.

Hot in Place Paving works like this:

The contractor mills (scrapes) off two inches of existing asphalt, adds rejuvenating oil, as necessary, and re-lays that asphalt as it goes in a chain of three or four pieces of equipment followed by rollers.

This is cost effective in a remote area like Pine Island because it doesn't require all the trucked-in asphalt haul costs. Conventional paving would have required more than 1,000 dump truck loads to be sent to Pine Island. This recycling technique will require maybe 40.

The whole "train" of equipment travels about 1 mph, and will take about 30 days to complete Stringfellow from St. James City to Bokeelia, one lane at a time, with flagmen assisting traffic control.