Silver: Polk Township 270^th Street

Contractor: Loch Sand & Construction Co.

Owner:  Polk Township, Missouri

The good news is this farm-to-market road seemed like a convenient way to bypass traffic associated with nearby business and industry, as well as a convenient way to get to two routes north and south of nearby Maryville, Mo.The bad news was that driving on the gravel and rough asphalt pavement sections  probably added more adventure and a few more jolts than motorists desired.

The 270^th Street project in Polk Township was the last road to be paved among a network of roadways reconstructed in the area recently. Along with the other Polk Township projects, this was a design/build project, and because it connected to existing Missouri DOT right-of-way roads, had to be designed carefully to meet the agency’s specifications. 

The project used the existing road profile, with some minor adjustments to improve the site distance and entry points off the main arteries. The new road required some excavation, including realigning a ditch for adequate draining, as well as removal of the existing roadway and re-grading and re-compacting the existing subgrade.  With that work completed, a new 7 in. concrete pavement with 15 ft. joint spacing was placed.  

Transitioning to concrete pavement from the previous asphalt and gravel sections would just naturally be an improvement, but the contractor’s use of an optimized concrete mixture, global positioning satellite technology, and attention to detail made a good concrete pavement even better.  Thanks to the quality design and construction, road users now have a reliable road they can use to connect to the two separate routes north and south of the area.   

Divided Highways – Rural

Gold: Interstate-25, Cheyenne to the Colorado State Line

Contractor:  Interstate Highway Construction, Inc.

Owner/Engineer: Wyoming Department of Transportation

Even a quick glance at the schedule for this project would have led most people to sum it up with a single word—impossible.That word is evidently not in the vocabulary of the contractor and agency involved in the reconstruction of Interstate-25, from Cheyenne to the Colorado state line.
The 4th of July holiday period, very quickly followed by the Cheyenne Frontier Days for 10 days in late July gave plenty of reasons to celebrate in Wyoming, but for the people involved in this project, the events added to the complexity of a 212-day project window to place 7.64 lane miles of 10-in. concrete. Were that not challenging enough, deep, soft. subgrade and extremely high and damaging winds added to the drama of finishing this project on time.

Interstate Highway Construction had to remove and replace an almost 50-year-old plain concrete pavement on the northbound lanes of the interstate and replace the sections with jointed, doweled concrete pavement and concrete shoulders. 

The project also included rehabilitation of four bridges, and overlay of the port-of-entry (while replacing static and weigh-in-motion scales); installation of median cable guardrail; new right-of-way fencing; a roadway management system; interchange lighting; and a winter road-closure station.   More than 2,500 heavy trucks, along with passenger cars traveling the route also presented traffic control challenges. The project required close coordination of construction with train schedules because of bridges that crossed over railroad tracks.