Route 4 Mendon progress

[K Ski Patroler]

Ribbon cutting is Friday @12:15 at River Road, then at @12:45 at Sugar and Spice.

Seriously?!

Yep heard it on 94.5 The Drive this afternoon.

[Bubba]

We made the trip into Rutland this afternoon. I never thought I'd look forward to seeing Rutland but having been closed out for almost 3 weeks, getting in there and getting things done was almost "fun". Downside was getting to H's storage unit and seeing where it had been flooded. We'd known about it for the past several weeks but couldn't get in to check it out.

As for the drive through Mendon, seeing the devasation first hand is a lot different than seeing aerial photos, news video, etc. Whole sides of hills are washed out, as high as 30 feet or even a little more simply washed down into the river and disappeared. Where the river had cut a narrow path through the land there is now nothing but wide, flat areas covered with rock and the occasional piece of heavy excavating equipment working away, and looking quite puny in the midst of all the open space. It's amazing to see and amazing to think it took only 18 days to get that section of road rebuilt, paved and open to traffic. A lot more work will need to be done to improve it back to the way it was but at least one lane is open each way, sometimes with traffic control as equipment moves around and work gets done.

Confirming Shortski's comment, that car does belong to snowymorning.

[RENO]

OPEN

Awesome!

[skiadikt]

astonishing! that looks like good old fashioned permanent asphalt to me. earlier in the thread someone mentioned they were using temporary cold patch blacktop. will this have to be replaced?

[Mister Moose]

astonishing! that looks like good old fashioned permanent asphalt to me. earlier in the thread someone mentioned they were using temporary cold patch blacktop. will this have to be replaced?

If you look back at the pavement laying photo, you can see steam rising from the pavement. It wasn't cold patch. Cold patch is for patching small areas and is, well, cold.

Hot pavement hits the ground at about 250-300 degrees this time of year. I forget the minimum truck temp for placement, but it's hot.

They were likely using binder, or class 1 asphalt. It's the normal base course. I don't know what they did for compaction controls, but that's a big lift. Really big lift. If they are expecting settling then this is just a temporary layer. Add in whatever trenching is required for pipeline repair. They would then repair with more binder, then add a finish course of a finer aggregate mix when the road is done. It will be at least next spring before the amount of settling is determined.

[shortski]

Ribbon cutting is Friday @12:15 at River Road, then at @12:45 at Sugar and Spice.

Seriously?!

Why not the pols gota get in the show..

[icedtea]

f'in amazing! much props to all the workers up there.

[Highway Star]

astonishing! that looks like good old fashioned permanent asphalt to me. earlier in the thread someone mentioned they were using temporary cold patch blacktop. will this have to be replaced?

If you look back at the pavement laying photo, you can see steam rising from the pavement. It wasn't cold patch. Cold patch is for patching small areas and is, well, cold.

Hot pavement hits the ground at about 250-300 degrees this time of year. I forget the minimum truck temp for placement, but it's hot.

They were likely using binder, or class 1 asphalt. It's the normal base course. I don't know what they did for compaction controls, but that's a big lift. Really big lift. If they are expecting settling then this is just a temporary layer. Add in whatever trenching is required for pipeline repair. They would then repair with more binder, then add a finish course of a finer aggregate mix when the road is done. It will be at least next spring before the amount of settling is determined.

Not to be negative....but in other words, enjoy the smooth pavement while it lasts.

[RENO]

astonishing! that looks like good old fashioned permanent asphalt to me. earlier in the thread someone mentioned they were using temporary cold patch blacktop. will this have to be replaced?

If you look back at the pavement laying photo, you can see steam rising from the pavement. It wasn't cold patch. Cold patch is for patching small areas and is, well, cold.

Hot pavement hits the ground at about 250-300 degrees this time of year. I forget the minimum truck temp for placement, but it's hot.

They were likely using binder, or class 1 asphalt. It's the normal base course. I don't know what they did for compaction controls, but that's a big lift. Really big lift. If they are expecting settling then this is just a temporary layer. Add in whatever trenching is required for pipeline repair. They would then repair with more binder, then add a finish course of a finer aggregate mix when the road is done. It will be at least next spring before the amount of settling is determined.

Not to be negative....but in other words, enjoy the smooth pavement while it lasts.

Gonna be hard to enjoy completely though without that finer aggregate mix!

[biged]

If the aggregate is near 1" in the mix design it is most likely a superpave binder. Temperature would be 275-325 degrees coming out of the truck and ideal compaction is 92-97%. Compaction out of a good paving machine is near 90%. The lift thickness looks like this is what it is. I think the FHWA is moving states away from Marshall Mix design (Class 1).

[SkiDork]

are you guys like all in the paving business?

[jimmywilson69]

That lift doesn't look that big, 4" at the most. I have to imagine they put at least double that down before putting in any other smaller aggregate based pavements.

[Stormchaser]

That lift doesn't look that big, 4" at the most. I have to imagine they put at least double that down before putting in any other smaller aggregate based pavements.

I think Moose is talking about the gravel base, not the pavement itself (I could be wrong here). I'd imagine they placed 4-8 feet of fill in some places and compacted it all at once with heavy equipment. In most cases where structural roadway fill is placed it needs to settle for at least one year, or be compacted by machinery in 12-24 inch increments to ensure the fill material will not settle over time. Based on the rush to get the road open, its unclear if proper compaction of the base material ever occured, and we will likely see settling in places over the next year or so...

[Mister Moose]

That lift doesn't look that big, 4" at the most. I have to imagine they put at least double that down before putting in any other smaller aggregate based pavements.

I think Moose is talking about the gravel base, not the pavement itself (I could be wrong here). I'd imagine they placed 4-8 feet of fill in some places and compacted it all at once with heavy equipment. In most cases where structural roadway fill is placed it needs to settle for at least one year, or be compacted by machinery in 12-24 inch increments to ensure the fill material will not settle over time. Based on the rush to get the road open, its unclear if proper compaction of the base material ever occured, and we will likely see settling in places over the next year or so...

Right. Who cares about whether it's a 4" base layer or 3" of pavement. Based on those earlier photos the depth of fill in places was over 15 feet to my eye.

Don't get me wrong, there's no complaining here, just saying there are a few more miles to go before we sleep, and expectations shouldn't be back to normal quite yet.

[jimmywilson69]

I got it. Yes I had wondered myself what kind of compaction they did when filling in those washouts. from the pictures I have seen, it looks like they pushed alot of larger material that was washed out by the stream in as the base for the fill. They wouldn't be able to compact that larger material very much. I would have to imagen they used some compaction techniques as they constructed the remainder of the fill with the offsite material. Remember they were working long days with a lot of resources dedicated to this reconstruction, so its possible they built it to last.

I guess we'll know come winter and especially in the spring...