In the past few years, the increased costs of construction and maintenance in combination with insufficient Federal, State, and local funding have resulted in a situation where asset managers are converting the pavements on aging rural roads to unpaved. In addition, failing to maintain a paved surface may lead to degradation in its ability to safely function as the surface becomes rough and slows down the average speed of traffic.

With the costs of maintenance and rehabilitation of aging pavements increasing, continuously shrinking budgets, and increasing loads from agricultural, energy, and freight sectors, the practice of converting pavements to unpaved will continue to grow. These issues make it necessary to identify measures to analyze and objectively determine when to convert to an unpaved surface, and to identify appropriate unpaved road maintenance and management strategies that will cost-effectively keep these converted pavements in a better condition than the original distressed asphalt pavement.

Information for the synthesis will be collected through a literature review, survey, and interviews.  The synthesis will also include case studies.