Video: Get ready for major road construction

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SEATTLE – Soon you'll see more orange cones, torn-up roads and blocked lanes.

Seattle is speeding up road projects this summer to try to get ahead of the booming prices for asphalt.

Repaving the worn-out roads across the region is tedious but necessary work.

In the City of Seattle back in 2003, repaving one lane for one mile cost $41,000. Today, that same distance costs more than double that - $88,000.

David Gent is an asphalt paving manager with Icon Materials – a major asphalt paving company in Washington.

"It's become a lot more volatile the last couple of years," he said.

So why the dramatic increase?

That's because the most expensive and important ingredient is a petroleum-based product or oil.

To make matters worse, there is a boom in shipping and refiners are taking the asphalt oil and making fuel for ships because that's more profitable.

"The asphalt oil has been not only more expensive, but it's projected to grow more and more scarce as time goes by," he said.

So the thinking for some municipalities is: pave more now, get more road projects done before the prices go even higher.

To cope, companies such as Icon are trying new solutions and reusing old ones. Whenever they tear up a road, they don't throw out the asphalt, they recycle it. In fact, they can reuse about 20 percent of it, which amounts to a big savings.