State seeks to sell useless $156,000 pothole patcher
| • | Pothole patchers busy on O'ahu |
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
The state Department of Transportation has abandoned plans to use a $156,000 pothole-patching machine bought three years ago but never put into operation. Instead, the state will try to sell the machine on the Mainland.
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"We tested it and tried to make it work, but the quality of the patch wouldn't even last a year," DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said yesterday.
The state's pothole-patching machine has not patched a single hole in the road since it was unveiled in 2001. Tests showed that the quality of the patch was not up to par.
State officials unveiled the Rosco RA-300 machine in 2001 with much fanfare, but never put it into use, saying that among other problems it required a special kind of asphalt mix that could not be found on O'ahu.
State Transportation Director Rod Haraga promised when he took over in February that the state would try to find a way to use the machine, but tests last month proved it wasn't feasible, Ishikawa said.
"We hired a company on a short-term contract to see if the machine was usable, but the quality of its patch just wasn't up to par," Ishikawa said. "Once we saw the test results, we knew that it just wouldn't be worth the cost of operating it."
Since the machine seems better suited to use on lightly used rural roads, the state hopes to sell it on the Mainland, Ishikawa said.
