Rehabilitation had been proposed for 14.5 miles of the Parks Highway (State Route 3) between the Little Susitna River (MP 56.9) and Willow Creek (MP 71.4) due to severe cracking and aggregate loss. It had been originally paved 24 feet wide with 2 inches of asphalt concrete on a 6 inch base in 1965 when traffic amounted to only 200 vehicles per day. By 1976, when the pavement evaluation was conducted, traffic had increased to 3,000 vehicles per day with 7% trucks. Over 8,000 vehicles per day are predicted by 1995. The pavement evaluation consisted of a visual condition survey, a deflection survey and core sampling and testing. It was obvious that severe reflective cracking would occur within a very short time after placement of the overlay unless the brittle, cracked pavement was pretreated or replaced. The only certain way to prevent reflection cracking is to remove and replace the cracked pavement with either recycled or virgin material.