How much asphalt can a million dollars buy if the budget allows it?

The answer is 700,000 pounds, or 35,000 tons. And, yes, the money was budgeted for the current fiscal year, along with a repaving contract to Cardi Construction Corp. And recently, with a $10 million, five-year, low-interest 1.24 percent loan, the city is preparing to embark on Mayor Joseph J. Solomon’s three-year program to upgrade Warwick streets. That’s a lot of asphalt.

Getting the job done involves an arsenal of equipment. In cases where the road does not need to be rebuilt, a 1.5-inch layer of pavement is removed in a process called cold planing (like you would plane a piece of wood). The process serves to level the road, although for a short time until it gets a fresh coat of asphalt, motorists get a rumble ride and play dodge with raised manhole covers and drain grids.

There was a time when a fresh layer of asphalt was simply applied over the old. That made for problems, explains Chris Clark, who works for the city and was on site during recent repaving of Shand Avenue off West Shore Road. Raising the road by another inch to two inches often altered the drainage, sending water into people’s yards. There’s an added benefit to shaving a layer off the old road. He said 90 percent of what’s removed is trucked back to the asphalt plant, where it is recycled.

A street sweeper and crew with blowers follow the street plane as it chews up the road surface, lifting the material by conveyor to a shoot that fills trucks as they line up to make their runs. With a series of hand signals and horns, drivers advance their trucks so as to evenly fill truck beds as the dinosaur-like apparatus eats up the road.

The repaving is an equally choreographed operation, requiring the staging of equipment. A route allowing for trucks arriving with hot, steaming asphalt fresh from the plant is planned with attention to overhead wires and trees as well as curb cuts, drains and utility lines. The process includes a raised berm on roads lacking curbs and sidewalks.

As Mike Kelly, who has been in the business for 25 years, has seen, the equipment has become increasingly upgraded and technically controlled. GPS has a role, as does equipment for the measurement of asphalt being applied down to its temperature.

Before Kelly climbs aboard his million-dollar ride – one of three new units Cardi operates – the old road removed of its “skin” gets a coating of thick black oil that serves as an adhesive for the fresh asphalt. Extra applications of the oil are applied at driveways and curb cuts.

With the gummy drippings of shiny oil reflecting, Kelly maneuvers the jaws of the paving unit to swallow the first mouthful of asphalt from the convoy of waiting trucks. The team goes into action. A crew follows, molding the gooey, steaming asphalt around drains and manhole covers with shovels and levelers. Curtis Burke, with steel soles strapped to his shoes, tamps down the hot asphalt around drains and where it links to driveways. It’s a job for hot feet.

A roller with water washing across its huge drum then comes into play, compacting the fresh coating before it cools. The water stops the sticky asphalt from adhering to the drum, explains Clark. The paving unit lays down a single-lane width of asphalt at a time, meaning it takes two passes to complete Shand Avenue.

The smooth road looks inviting. Traffic isn’t heavy here, so it could be 20 years, maybe longer, before a repaving crew visits again.