Battle to the finish.

* The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is conducting a test to determine the long-term costs and benefits of concrete and asphalt as paying surfaces for state highways.

Two different contractors are currently preparing to each pave a four lane, 8-mile stretch of U.S. 30 in Ohio, one contractor using concrete and the other asphalt. The west-bound lanes will be paved with asphalt and the east-bound lanes with concrete.

The object of the U.S. 30 test is to pit the two methods against each other in like weather and traffic conditions.

According to a report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ODOT is conducting the experiment to help it determine which road material is more durable, quieter, smoother and an overall better buy. The concrete and asphalt sections will be monitored by the agency over decades, if need be, to help it reach conclusions.

The stretch of U.S. 30, which runs between Wooster and Orrville, is being upgraded and expanded from a two-lane road to a four-lane divided highway.

Industry trade groups in Ohio are already checking in with opinions on what will be learned from the experiment. The Plain Dealer notes that the "asphalt industry's trade group, Flexible Pavements of Ohio, said it will win Round One by doing the initial paving a little cheaper."

But a spokesperson from the Ohio Concrete Construction Association counters that it is the long-term durability that is the key to real value. "We don't refute there is a slight premium you pay for concrete up front," the association's Roger Faulkner rolls the Plain Dealer. "[But] when you add in all the costs to maintain a road, concrete pavement in the majority of the cases proves to be the most economical choice in the long term."

Many of Ohio's highway lane miles currently contain both materials. According to the Plain Dealer, a majority of Ohio's older interstate highways were built with concrete, but have been resurfaced with asphalt.

The overall project cost is budgeted at $42 million, although only about a quarter of that cost is for the paving portion of the job. Work is not expected to be complete until June of 2006.