Construction Equipment Guide
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Wed November 29, 2000 - Southeast Edition
Palm Beach County may be known nationally for ballot recounts but locally it is known for other things, including long traffic jams during peak commuting hours. That’s the reason highway officials recently began work on a pair of highway projects totaling slightly more than $80 million.
That’s according to officials with the Florida Department of Transportation. A spokeswoman for the state agency said the projects’ common goal is to relieve traffic congestion along Interstate 95 in Palm Beach County.
I-95 is the main interstate highway in the eastern half of the state. The highway roughly parallels Florida’s east coast and runs through the cities and urban areas from Jacksonville south to Miami. State officials said the interstate is especially busy in the southern part of the state that includes Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Highway planners came to the conclusion that a section of this route needed additional lanes.
“One general use lane outside the existing travel lanes and one High Occupancy Vehicle [HOV] lane within the median will be constructed in each direction,” state Florida DOT documents. “Shoulders and bridges will be widened, a sound barrier wall will be added and new lighting and drainage systems will be constructed.”
Florida DOT spokeswoman Sarah Peacock Crowell said the drainage is a constant worry when performing construction work in sea-level state of Florida. That’s why a new type of drainage system will be used n the project.
“The new drainage system will collect and filter fine sediment from roadway run-off, preventing it from settling at the bottom of surrounding bodies of water and suffocating grasses that provide important links in a healthy food chain,” Crowell said.
Florida DOT documents show that work on this particular project began on Sept. 11 and will run through fall 2003. The contractor on this $32-million part of the construction effort is Hardrives of Delray Inc.
Bill Stellway, Hardrives’ project manager on this work, said 5.1 mi. (8.2 km) of highway will be involved in this part of the I-95 renovation. He said part of the work will involve replacing a bridge that spans the E-4 Canal and improving the bridge at the C-16 Canal. Stellway said the highway crosses numerous canals that empty into the Atlantic Ocean but only the E-4 Canal bridge fails to meet modern standards and needs to be replaced.
Stellway said he wasn’t sure exactly what equipment would be used on the project, but added that he expected the usual highway construction and paving equipment will be used.
The Hardrives highway project runs from just north of Gateway Boulevard in Boynton Beach southward to L-30 Canal. The next project picks up at this spot and runs southward past Atlantic Boulevard (which divides Boynton Beach from Delray Beach) to just south of Linton Boulevard.
Crowell said this $49-million project is being overseen by Greenhorn and O’Mara Inc. The Greenbelt, MD, corporation is scheduled to handle the construction engineering and inspection. The actual construction duties have been awarded to Hubbard Construction Company. Hubbard engineer Tom Craft said the price tag for the 3.3-mi. (5.3 km) project may seem high at first, but that opinion should change after reviewing the work planned for this stretch of highway.
“This involves a total reconstruction of I-95, including five bridges,” Craft said.
The engineer said the project is expected to take nearly four years to complete and began Nov. 1. Craft said the work should be relatively routine for the construction company and the subcontractors.
“It’s pretty standard stuff,” he said. “Even the maintenance of traffic is pretty straightforward,” he said.
Craft said he expects to use three bridge crews, four roadways crews and “several” other crews for paving. He said he hasn’t come up with a final calculation for the total number of employees, but said there also will be project staff, inspectors and a number of subcontractors involved in the job.
Craft said the usual types of equipment will be used on the job as needed. He said the project will use bulldozers, motor graders, dump trucks, backhoes, rollers, paver and cranes.
“We’ll probably use the 150-ton friction cranes, the ones on rubber tires. There will be too much going over bridges to use crawlers,” Craft said.
The Palm Beach projects were funded as part of the state of Florida’s “Mobility 2000” initiative. According to state leaders, the new law, which was signed by Gov. Jeb Bush in June 1999, provides more than $2.5 billion of additional funds for transportation over a 10-year period.
“Mobility 2000 will result in our citizens seeing easier daily commutes, our visitors reaching their destinations quicker and safer, our businesses better serving their customers through expanded trade routes, and our coastal residents having faster emergency evacuation,” said Florida DOT Secretary Tom Barry.