May 19, 2008
Detour ahead | A conversation with Maine DOT project coordinator Joyce Taylor about this summer's closure of an 18-mile stretch of I-295
By Whit Richardson
You know it had to happen one of these days. Concrete doesn't last forever ˆ especially when the concrete succumbs to a mysterious chemical reaction that slowly pulverizes it over time. That's what has happened on an 18-mile southbound section of Interstate 295, between Topsham and Gardiner, that needs replacing. And the Maine Department of Transportation is in charge of overseeing a complete and unprecedented reconstruction of the roadway this summer, at the height of the state's vacation season.
The Maine DOT made the announcement in February when it began visiting local communities that will be affected by the project. Between June 15 and August 30, employees of Pike Industries, the New Hampshire-based contractor, will completely rebuild the road using a process called "rubblizing" that chops the existing concrete road surface into small pieces that will be used as the base of the new highway surface. But because of the closure, southbound travelers will be forced to use the Maine Turnpike to reach Portland or use Route 201 for local traffic.
The 18-mile section of road is deteriorating at a rate quicker than expected because of a chemical reaction ˆ unknown at the time the road was built in the 1970s ˆ caused by the type of soil used when the cement was mixed, according to Joyce Taylor, the DOT employee overseeing the $28.5 million project, of which 90% is being covered by the federal government.
Taylor, the assistant director of the DOT's bureau of project development, admits the project will be an inconvenience, but also says a full closure allows the job to be finished in one summer, rather than piecemeal over three consecutive construction seasons.
Mainebiz spoke with Taylor about the logistics necessary for such a project, the mysterious chemical reaction responsible for the rebuild, and about future plans for a closure of northbound I-295. The following is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How did the DOT make the decision to close down that 18-mile section of I-295 for a whole summer?
Joyce Taylor: We did go through quite a process and I can honestly tell you when we started to look at this as a project it wasn't even on the table as an option ˆ a full closure. The technical team that was charged with assessing the project design and construction methods came back to the management group at DOT and said, "We highly recommend going this way." The primary issue was safety. Safety relates to timing and time of work. We knew that the best option for the road was to get the concrete out of there. We haven't been having as good luck treating the broken concrete over past 15 years. It's not holding together; it's falling apart faster. So we were really looking at what can we do to really fix this road, and anything we were going to do, if we did it in segments, would take a long time. And every day you have a work zone operational is a day someone's at risk. There are a lot of accidents in work zones, both to the motorists and the workers. So there was that issue.
The other thing is we had a unique opportunity with Route 201, having been the previous interstate system, if you will, before the interstate was built. It's under capacity in terms of its traffic because everyone uses 295. We also felt with the turnpike we had another opportunity to get a good chunk of that traffic over onto the turnpike. So we had a couple really good detour options.
We also knew that to get that concrete out of there, that we had an economy of scale thing going. We haven't rubblized at this scale and we knew [the contractors here in Maine] would need to get equipment out of state. To make it worth their while, to give us decent prices, there needs to be enough work that it's worth it to them.
What do you say to critics who say closing down a portion of the highway at the peak of tourism season is a bad idea?
We looked certainly at different options. For example, rubblizing one side and then running traffic next to it. And from a practicality construction method we were not convinced we would be able to keep that concrete solid on half the lanes while we were removing the [other half] because you have to take out the dowel bars when you rubblize and that's part of what's giving strength to the concrete. The concrete is so soft in places the machine pounding on the other side could break up the concrete. We didn't know if we could keep that going.
In terms of time of year, we looked at could we do it earlier, could we do it later. Weather is definitely a factor in paving. Maine does have a short construction season. We looked at doing it early. You can rubblize in April, although you have to make sure there's not so much water sitting around that it prevents you from doing other work. If we had tried to do it in the fall we would have had [a school bus] issue, plus you get into cold, wet weather. The biggest failure we've had with pavement you can almost always trace back to weather conditions. We want this pavement to last. This is a 20-year solution, so it's got to be optimum.
What are you hearing from residents of some of the towns that will be affected by the detour?
I think they are really concerned about what the feel of Route 201 is going to be. They're concerned about taking left-hand turns across southbound traffic. They're concerned about kids and animals. Because it's underutilized it has the feel of a residential area and they want that feel. And they're nervous about the noise. They're nervous about if there's an accident what will happen. Will everything come to a screeching stop?
We have been working with the first responders and we've had at least three or four meetings at this point with local communities, the rescue, the fire, the police, some of the county police are coming, state police. And so we've been working pretty hard at coming up with safety plans so that if there is an incident in a town, how can they help each other, cover for each other? How will they help us clear out Route 201 if that needs to happen? So we've been working with all those folks, and I think they are guardedly optimistic that this can work. I don't know that they would endorse the project, nor would I expect them to, or ask them to.
How are you going about letting the businesses, the commuters and the residents know about detour options?
There's a number of things. There's an advertising campaign. There'll be some radio, some TV, the website presence. There's going to be an aggressive campaign at the visitors' center with maps. The Maine Tourism board is working with their members and helping get maps to campgrounds, motels and restaurants.
Have you met any resistance from the commercial truckers?
They've actually been very positive. I think they're pretty tired of the year-to-year lane closures on 295 and the delays they experience in the construction zones every year. And the message we're getting is if you're going to fix it, and you're going to leave it fixed, we'll support you. Just do it and get it over with.
What other logistical parts of the project are you dealing with?
We're working with [Pike Industries] right now trying to establish where they're going to bring materials in from and where they're going to truck to. We're looking at their haul routes to make sure they have the least amount of impact on the detour. There's a lot of material they need to get to and from that site. Trying to just staff the project because during the full closure it's going to be going seven days a week and the contractor intends to work long days, 16 hour days at a stretch. And looking at the schedule to make sure there's an emphasis on quality work. So it's not the most difficult job to construct, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work in a short amount of time.
How many people will be employed on the project?
You'll find 150 employees out there for Pike Industries and their [subcontractors], but that doesn't count all the other people producing products like guardrails, and truckers. A couple hundred people will be employed this summer because of this project.
In its press release, the Department of Transportation said the project cost was $28.5 million. But earlier estimates pegged the cost at $32 million. Is there a reason the price is lower? Did competition for the project drive the price down?
Well, the competitionˆ that helped. I think as we got our arms around the final estimate ˆ we do a final engineers' estimate ˆ we were able to look at some of the things that we thought would save us money and we were able to incorporate those things. So we went through that exercise. I just think there's not a lot of private work. New Hampshire, my understanding is, hasn't put out a lot of paving yet. So I think the paving contractors were hungry for this work.
Now there's still within that total cost an opportunity for some incentives that go up to a little bit over $2 million. So the final cost of the project could still be in the 30-something million dollar range. For example, if the contractor can get the full closure open up to 20 days early, there's a $2 million incentive. If it's up to 20 days late, they lose $2 million. There's basically a swing of $4 million there depending on the schedule.
The highway was built in the 1970s. What was the actual lifespan supposed to be?
Concrete is supposed to last about 40 years. But many states are seeing much higher life cycles. And this one would have lasted longer if it wasn't for the chemical reaction that's taking place. That's really what's happening there.
Tell me about that.
It's a chemical reaction that happens between the soil that's used ˆ when you make concrete, you have the cement mixture and you have the aggregate material, the rock and the soil you use. There was a chemical reaction that no one knew about, no one had ever heard of prior to this work, and it is a reaction that makes a little gel within the concrete and it swells up and it actually cracks the concrete apart or it pulverizes it.
Does this mean that other sections of 295 will need to be completely rebuilt?
Well, actually the section just south of this section ˆ the Topsham to Brunswick area that they're going to repave ˆ is not showing signs of this reaction. So that looks good. Some of the [northbound] sections are showing signs of the chemical reaction.
So that means we can expect a similar project on the northbound lanes next?
Well, we're not sure what we're going to do there, and when. We don't have the money right now to do the north side, but we're watching it, we're worried about it. If it keeps falling apart the way it is, we are going to have to fix it.
The Maine DOT made the announcement in February when it began visiting local communities that will be affected by the project. Between June 15 and August 30, employees of Pike Industries, the New Hampshire-based contractor, will completely rebuild the road using a process called "rubblizing" that chops the existing concrete road surface into small pieces that will be used as the base of the new highway surface. But because of the closure, southbound travelers will be forced to use the Maine Turnpike to reach Portland or use Route 201 for local traffic.
The 18-mile section of road is deteriorating at a rate quicker than expected because of a chemical reaction ˆ unknown at the time the road was built in the 1970s ˆ caused by the type of soil used when the cement was mixed, according to Joyce Taylor, the DOT employee overseeing the $28.5 million project, of which 90% is being covered by the federal government.
Taylor, the assistant director of the DOT's bureau of project development, admits the project will be an inconvenience, but also says a full closure allows the job to be finished in one summer, rather than piecemeal over three consecutive construction seasons.
Mainebiz spoke with Taylor about the logistics necessary for such a project, the mysterious chemical reaction responsible for the rebuild, and about future plans for a closure of northbound I-295. The following is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How did the DOT make the decision to close down that 18-mile section of I-295 for a whole summer?
Joyce Taylor: We did go through quite a process and I can honestly tell you when we started to look at this as a project it wasn't even on the table as an option ˆ a full closure. The technical team that was charged with assessing the project design and construction methods came back to the management group at DOT and said, "We highly recommend going this way." The primary issue was safety. Safety relates to timing and time of work. We knew that the best option for the road was to get the concrete out of there. We haven't been having as good luck treating the broken concrete over past 15 years. It's not holding together; it's falling apart faster. So we were really looking at what can we do to really fix this road, and anything we were going to do, if we did it in segments, would take a long time. And every day you have a work zone operational is a day someone's at risk. There are a lot of accidents in work zones, both to the motorists and the workers. So there was that issue.
The other thing is we had a unique opportunity with Route 201, having been the previous interstate system, if you will, before the interstate was built. It's under capacity in terms of its traffic because everyone uses 295. We also felt with the turnpike we had another opportunity to get a good chunk of that traffic over onto the turnpike. So we had a couple really good detour options.
We also knew that to get that concrete out of there, that we had an economy of scale thing going. We haven't rubblized at this scale and we knew [the contractors here in Maine] would need to get equipment out of state. To make it worth their while, to give us decent prices, there needs to be enough work that it's worth it to them.
What do you say to critics who say closing down a portion of the highway at the peak of tourism season is a bad idea?
We looked certainly at different options. For example, rubblizing one side and then running traffic next to it. And from a practicality construction method we were not convinced we would be able to keep that concrete solid on half the lanes while we were removing the [other half] because you have to take out the dowel bars when you rubblize and that's part of what's giving strength to the concrete. The concrete is so soft in places the machine pounding on the other side could break up the concrete. We didn't know if we could keep that going.
In terms of time of year, we looked at could we do it earlier, could we do it later. Weather is definitely a factor in paving. Maine does have a short construction season. We looked at doing it early. You can rubblize in April, although you have to make sure there's not so much water sitting around that it prevents you from doing other work. If we had tried to do it in the fall we would have had [a school bus] issue, plus you get into cold, wet weather. The biggest failure we've had with pavement you can almost always trace back to weather conditions. We want this pavement to last. This is a 20-year solution, so it's got to be optimum.
What are you hearing from residents of some of the towns that will be affected by the detour?
I think they are really concerned about what the feel of Route 201 is going to be. They're concerned about taking left-hand turns across southbound traffic. They're concerned about kids and animals. Because it's underutilized it has the feel of a residential area and they want that feel. And they're nervous about the noise. They're nervous about if there's an accident what will happen. Will everything come to a screeching stop?
We have been working with the first responders and we've had at least three or four meetings at this point with local communities, the rescue, the fire, the police, some of the county police are coming, state police. And so we've been working pretty hard at coming up with safety plans so that if there is an incident in a town, how can they help each other, cover for each other? How will they help us clear out Route 201 if that needs to happen? So we've been working with all those folks, and I think they are guardedly optimistic that this can work. I don't know that they would endorse the project, nor would I expect them to, or ask them to.
How are you going about letting the businesses, the commuters and the residents know about detour options?
There's a number of things. There's an advertising campaign. There'll be some radio, some TV, the website presence. There's going to be an aggressive campaign at the visitors' center with maps. The Maine Tourism board is working with their members and helping get maps to campgrounds, motels and restaurants.
Have you met any resistance from the commercial truckers?
They've actually been very positive. I think they're pretty tired of the year-to-year lane closures on 295 and the delays they experience in the construction zones every year. And the message we're getting is if you're going to fix it, and you're going to leave it fixed, we'll support you. Just do it and get it over with.
What other logistical parts of the project are you dealing with?
We're working with [Pike Industries] right now trying to establish where they're going to bring materials in from and where they're going to truck to. We're looking at their haul routes to make sure they have the least amount of impact on the detour. There's a lot of material they need to get to and from that site. Trying to just staff the project because during the full closure it's going to be going seven days a week and the contractor intends to work long days, 16 hour days at a stretch. And looking at the schedule to make sure there's an emphasis on quality work. So it's not the most difficult job to construct, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work in a short amount of time.
How many people will be employed on the project?
You'll find 150 employees out there for Pike Industries and their [subcontractors], but that doesn't count all the other people producing products like guardrails, and truckers. A couple hundred people will be employed this summer because of this project.
In its press release, the Department of Transportation said the project cost was $28.5 million. But earlier estimates pegged the cost at $32 million. Is there a reason the price is lower? Did competition for the project drive the price down?
Well, the competitionˆ that helped. I think as we got our arms around the final estimate ˆ we do a final engineers' estimate ˆ we were able to look at some of the things that we thought would save us money and we were able to incorporate those things. So we went through that exercise. I just think there's not a lot of private work. New Hampshire, my understanding is, hasn't put out a lot of paving yet. So I think the paving contractors were hungry for this work.
Now there's still within that total cost an opportunity for some incentives that go up to a little bit over $2 million. So the final cost of the project could still be in the 30-something million dollar range. For example, if the contractor can get the full closure open up to 20 days early, there's a $2 million incentive. If it's up to 20 days late, they lose $2 million. There's basically a swing of $4 million there depending on the schedule.
The highway was built in the 1970s. What was the actual lifespan supposed to be?
Concrete is supposed to last about 40 years. But many states are seeing much higher life cycles. And this one would have lasted longer if it wasn't for the chemical reaction that's taking place. That's really what's happening there.
Tell me about that.
It's a chemical reaction that happens between the soil that's used ˆ when you make concrete, you have the cement mixture and you have the aggregate material, the rock and the soil you use. There was a chemical reaction that no one knew about, no one had ever heard of prior to this work, and it is a reaction that makes a little gel within the concrete and it swells up and it actually cracks the concrete apart or it pulverizes it.
Does this mean that other sections of 295 will need to be completely rebuilt?
Well, actually the section just south of this section ˆ the Topsham to Brunswick area that they're going to repave ˆ is not showing signs of this reaction. So that looks good. Some of the [northbound] sections are showing signs of the chemical reaction.
So that means we can expect a similar project on the northbound lanes next?
Well, we're not sure what we're going to do there, and when. We don't have the money right now to do the north side, but we're watching it, we're worried about it. If it keeps falling apart the way it is, we are going to have to fix it.
Mainebiz web partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments