Walking Tracks Offer Outdoor Recreation for San Antonio Elementary Schools

The North East Independent School District (NEISD), San Antonio, used Porous Pave XL to install ADA-compliant walking tracks at 44 elementary schools. Made in the U.S., Porous Pave XL is a porous paving material made with 50 percent recycled rubber chips and 50 percent aggregate mixed on site with a liquid binder. The 9-feet-wide, 675-feet-long, walking tracks provide an outdoor recreation resource for the schools and nearby neighborhoods.

“The project required a surface with superior flexibility so that serviceability cracks, caused by horizontal or vertical movements of the underlying soils due to expansion and contraction, would not create problems,” says Jorge Cabello, senior director, construction management, NEISD. “In addition, we needed a workable and proven material that we could use both to construct new walking tracks and to overlay existing asphalt tracks which had excessive ‘alligator’ cracking.”

“Porous Pave was a good solution for paving the new tracks and refurbishing the older ones. The recycled rubber makes it flexible enough to expand and contract without cracking,” says Dave Frazier, engineering sales manager, GeoSolutions Inc., a regional leader in ground stabilization, earth retention and erosion control and distributor for Porous Pave. “The rubber chips also make it non-slip, and since the material creates a paved surface with 27 percent porosity, the new walking tracks drain quickly, leaving no puddles after it rains.”

R.L. Rohde General Contracting Inc., Adkins, Texas, and Jerdon Enterprise L.P., Stafford, Texas, were the primary contractors on the two-year paving project. “All contractors bidding on the project were required to attend an on-site training class and get certified as an installer,” says Randy Rohde, project manager for R.L. Rohde. “This was our first time using Porous Pave. Once we figured out how to scale up the installation process, we could install each track in a day.”

The 37 new walking tracks have a 2-inch Porous Pave surface paved atop a 6-inch base of number 57 crushed stone with an underlying geogrid system installed over the substrate. Drainage is provided by strip drains with 4-inch PVC pipe. The tracks feature integrated 6-inch header curbs and accessible connecting pathways. As a pour-in-place paving material, Porous Pave conformed to the curves the contractors established in the tracks with bendable form boards. To repair the seven previously installed asphalt tracks that had developed severe cracking, the contractors poured a 2-inch top coat of Porous Pave over the old asphalt.