Concrete grinding residue (CGR) is an inert, nonhazardous byproduct of the diamond grinding process, which is used on pavement to restore ride quality, increase skid resistance and reduce noise. When diamond grinding concrete highways, water used to cool cutting blades combines with hardened cement paste and aggregate particulates to generate CGR, also known as slurry.

Diamond grooving has proved to be one of the most cost-effective safety programs of the Department of Public Works. Motorcycle accident reports were reviewed from both grooved and ungrooved sections. The Department of Public Works' accident experience reveals that grooving has yielded a 10% reduction in total accidents, 50% reduction in fatal accidents and 70% reduction in wet pavement accidents.

The European Union addressed the general issue of environmental noise in a 2002 European directive known as the “Environmental Noise Directive (END)”. Some low-noise surface finishing techniques include longitudinal tining, micro-milling, diamond grinding, and Next Generation Concrete Surface (NGCS). The NGCS is a promising technique with important noise reductions confirmed by measurements.

WSDOT has been rehabilitating its aged PCC pavements, over the last 10 years, using dowel bar retrofit (DBR), panel replacements, and diamond grinding. Based on these modifications and enhancements, dowel bar retrofit is considered to be a successful and viable alternative for rehabilitating faulting concrete pavements in Washington state.

An experimental investigation was conducted by Purdue University to determine the effects of Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavement joint width, fill condition and faulting on tire-pavement noise generation. Tire pavement noise generation due to pavement joints was found to be a strong function of joint width suggesting that in order to decrease noise levels it is necessary to construct pavements with the narrowest joint width practical.

Road pavement surface layers incorporating rubberized asphalt binders have recently been recommended as a measure to mitigate noise. At first their acoustical performance seems to be superior to that shown by conventional layers. Nevertheless, the knowledge in relation to their behavior throughout their lifetime is limited. This research, carried out over several road sections with open graded and gap-graded mixtures, two of which with rubberized asphalt, by means of controlled pass-by tests, is aimed at observing and studying these type of mixes over a time span of three years.