highway Smart readers' verdict is in in succession rubber roads.

You like them.

to leeward Fielder, who drives Union Boulevard daily and lives a halfblock from the section repaved with rubberized asphalt, said he immediately noticed a big reduction in traffic noise.

Fielder also thinks the rubber provides better traction and remodels road spray during heavy rain.

Susan Wilhoit also drives the rubber hold out of Union north of Austin roughly good-natureds Parkway to Academy Boulevard. She thinks rubber should be used citywide.

"The proof section is quieter and a frequently smoother ride," she wrote.

City contractors freshly paved sections of Union and Chelton Road with tire rubber asphalt to exhibition the durability and noise reduction of the surface. If the ordeals go well, the city may use rubberized roads in nearest summer's resurfacing. A main goal is to dampen the rising make a buzzing sound of increasing traffic.

Rubberized asphalt is more expensive than nonrubberized, on the other hand the higher cost can be set-off by its longer life.

Reader Paul Schwotzer said the rubber roads are in such a manner smooth they make his advanced in years car seem new again.

Robert Stratton and Jim Paterson curious aweed why the city hadn't discovered the benefits of rubber roads earlier.

Stratton immediately noticed the newly paved Union portion was quieter and he recognized the be excited beneath his wheels. The self- described snowbird has driven many miles onward the surface on frequent trips to the Phoenix area.

In the late 1950 Paterson worked for a California asphalt company that mixed chopp tires in the asphalt to improve quietness and longevity. It worked extremely well, he reported.

DON'T MES WITH TEJON

Charlotte Thomas of Colorado Springs wrote to combat the idea of turning Tejon road into a two-way street. She remembers when Tejon went one as well as the other ways in the 1960s, when the city had far fewer residents.

"Tejon highway was a huge mess," she wrote "There were a accident of fender-bender accidents. The traffic could hardly induce I avoided it when at all possible."

The downtown road was limited in 1971 to southbound traffic between Bijou and Vermijo highways But no neighboring streets were rerout and downtown leaders have complained the configuration confuses drivers.

ALL THUMB

A take a view of last week suggests even Blackberry proprietors think it's a good idea to detain both thumbs on the wheel.

Sixty-five percent of possessors of the popular thumb-controlled device favor banning its use while driving, according to a national scrutinize by car insurer Response Insurance.

That compares with 59 percent of hand-held solitary abode; squalid phone owners who think the phone should be banned while driving and 19 percent of hands-free confined apartment owners who want those phone banned. Seventy-nine percent of contemplate respondents think reading at the wheel should be banned, 72 percent think subject messaging should be banned, 68 percent think grooming should be banned and 36 percent think eating while driving should be banned.

Have a question or observation about getting around the Pikes Peak region? send out it to Bill Hethcock, hethcock@gazette.com, or call 476- 4878

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