Tina Ritchie, who lives at 2810 Igou Ferry Road and drives it almost every day, thinks the road “looks OK.”

But she’s not looking at the Soddy-Daisy road with the eyes of a highway engineer.

Gary Bean, superintendent of highways at the Hamilton County Highway Department, said that, along with needing a spot paved over where a water line recently was put in, Igou Ferry is badly cracked, letting in rain and causing erosion. He fears without preventive maintenance, the road will have extensive damage and require much more expensive work.

“They deteriorate, and you lose them completely,” he said.

Trouble is, even less-expensive roadwork is more costly these days. The cost of asphalt, a crude-oil byproduct, has skyrocketed in the last year, and across the country paving contractors and public works departments are feeling the pinch. Hamilton County and state officials have been forced to make cutbacks and focus on smaller maintenance projects.

“We’re getting the same price as everybody else is getting, (and) we’ve had an increase from last year,” said Harold Austin, director of the Hamilton County Highway Department. “It was costing us about $60,000 per mile, and this year it’s running about $75,000 per mile.”

With the price increase, the department will focus mainly on roads in the worst shape and will cut back this year from about 20 miles to just 14 miles of roadwork, which includes everything from small maintenance to paving new subdivisions, he said.

Roadwork will focus on “patching,” using a cold slurry seal — asphalt mixed with crushed rocks, sand and water — to fill cracks and holes, Mr. Austin said. Sealants are spread much thinner than hot asphalt mixes and, while they’re fine for filling cracks, they are not strong enough for paving and cannot handle the pressure of traffic. Such seals also protect the pavement from water and erosion, usually delaying the need to repave completely for more than four years, according Mr. Austin.

Patching is what they’ll do to Igou Ferry Road, under a state aid project that Mr. Bean said he hoped to complete in the fall. Residents of the road said it did not seem to be in very bad shape. They said they worried more about the road flooding during heavy rain and speeding drivers.

“I guess it could probably use a little bit (of maintenance) but it’s not a fairly old road,” said Jesse Pollard of 2826 Igou Ferry Road.

ALTERNATIVE FIXES

The usual asphalt mix is a heated combination of sand, rock, gravel, and a small amount of liquid asphalt, which binds the mix together. The per-ton price of the mix rose $10 in 2008, while the cost of liquid asphalt has doubled, according to Garry Young, owner of Young’s Paving on Airport Road.

Asphalt has risen from $22 to $54 per ton since 2005, Mr. Young said, while liquid asphalt rose from $300 to $600 per ton just in the last few months.

He said he is getting by thanks to a number of new school projects in Georgia, where his company is covering tracks and athletic courts. He also said the cold slurry seal and other sealants are a temporary, “cosmetic” solution.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation also will cut roadwork, resurfacing about 1,600 miles of state highways this year instead of the 2,500 miles originally planned. Julie Oaks, TDOT spokeswoman, said gas prices were much lower when TDOT budgeted its resurfacing work.

“TDOT feels the impact of rising asphalt prices,” Ms. Oaks said. “But also because we have to use diesel to run the majority of the equipment that we use for our resurfacing projects.”

Rising rock and diesel-fuel costs are adding to the paving crunch, Mr. Austin and Mr. Young said.

“We’re going to try to think outside the box a little bit and come up with better ways to save a little money,” including alternative asphalt mixes, Mr. Austin said.

Omega Paving and Construction Management Group in Atlanta produces one of the alternatives Mr. Austin is considering, a liquid enzyme formula, PZ-22X, which binds soil and uses less liquid asphalt.

“This has been a good time for us,” Omega owner Thomas Settles said. “We’re getting a lot of requests to use our product because it can cut about 50 to 60 percent of the cost out of paving a regular road.”

At that rate, a mile of roadwork would cost $30,000 to $37,500.

Mr. Young said no one is spared from the high cost of asphalt.

“It’s beginning to affect the homeowner that wants to get their driveway paved,” he said. “The cost is rising so rapidly that some of them can’t afford it. It’s also slowing development. ... People aren’t developing subdivisions and strip malls.”

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