Posted on 05/16/2018 12:16:00 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The soggy spring and delays in obtaining the necessary environmental permits may push back the completion date of work to reconstruct Interstate 70 between Beau Street and the Route 519/Eighty Four interchanges.
“We are behind schedule,” Scott Faieta, assistant construction engineer for the state Department of Transportation, said Tuesday. “We met last week with the contractor, and it may be necessary to push it back to summer of 2021. It was supposed to be done November 2020.”
The contractor for the $117 million project is Lane Construction Co. The work includes widening the highway to three lanes in each direction between the Beau Street interchange and the south junction with Interstate 79.
“We are going to try and pull back those dates,” Faieta said. “At the end of the week, we are going to review with the contractor. We have some ideas that might work to pull the completion date back to 2020.
“But it is one thing to look at it and another once it goes through scheduling software,” he added. “But I am optimistic. Of course, getting back to where it was might come with associated costs.”
Faieta said some days were just so muddy crews could not work. He said loads of mud hauled away from the construction site had to be dumped and allowed to dry out before the material could be used as fill.
While there have not been any issues with the flow of traffic in the construction area, Faieta said he has noticed an increase in the number of vehicles on the highway as the summer travel season approaches.
All the drainage work on the project has been completed. Westbound traffic between Beau and the south junction has been moved to the shoulders so work can begin to reconstruct that side of the highway this year. Traffic in both directions between the junction and the Route 519/Eighty Four exits has been pushed to the outside so the contractor can work in the median, Faieta said. Pothole patching will continue, as needed, on the travel lanes.
A stream off Wilson Road near the eastern end of the project has been moved about 100 feet. Faieta said that will allow the contractor to straighten a curve on the highway just west of the Route 519/Eighty Four exit and improve sight distance.
“I am still noticing the drivers do not want to obey the speed limit,” Faieta said. The speed limit in the construction area is 45 mph.
Nighttime lane closures from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. will continue through the fall.
Two words that will be seen less often, global warming.
Piss Poor planning if weather delays in 2018 affect a 2020 deadline. You build in cushion for weather, especially for a multi-year project.
Multi-year, my arse. This project is a LIFETIME deal for the contractor. I’ve been traveling that road for over ten years and it has never NOT been under construction.There’s gotta be a Shuster in this somewhere.
Even on schedule it won’t be completed until November 2020? Must be a union job.
I believe they are rebuilding the stretch of road as well as widening it, the way they apparently did with the section immediately to the west.
Do the circles have truck aprons?
I was thinking Barry Stout...you know he owned a road construction/repair company?
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