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Residents on the north side of Bossier City will get an extra holiday gift this year when work is completed on 6.5 mi. of Airline Drive, one of the city's busiest business and residential corridors.
Most motorists in the area are probably not aware that the barricades and construction represent two different projects, both with the same goal to widen the busy thoroughfare from three to five lanes. Best Yet Builders LLC of Shreveport is constructing both jobs.
Airline Drive from Interstate 220 to the city limits requires 2.5 mi. of concrete roadway and carries a price tag of just under $10 million. Joey Earnest, project manager for Best Yet Builders LLC, said the job started in January and should be completed by Christmas.
The project is being funded by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.
The second job - being constructed for Bossier Parish - will widen an additional 4 mi. of of the road from the city limits to Benton. The $4.4 million project is also turning three lanes into five, but uses 10 in. of soil cement topped with 8 in. of paved rock and finished with 6 in. of asphalt.
Earnest said the state project is being completed in phases, with the first phase requiring the clearing of the east side of the existing road and bringing in 30,000 cu. yds. of dirt to create embankment for the new lanes.
The soil was compacted to 95 percent and 12 in. of lime was placed to treat the dirt before adding 8 in. of crushed limestone base topped with 10 in. of concrete.
Earnest said the use of concrete over asphalt has become a popular trend in recent years.
"Especially on these urban sections, the state usually specifies concrete," he added. "This job used a special mix that the state came up with. I don't think it was specific to this job, but they have changed the mix design."
While most concrete mixes utilize a three-bin mixing process, the new state requirements called for a four-bin mixing process.
"As far as paving, it's the same," Earnest said. "What they're looking for, I really don't know. Other than making it, I haven't noticed much difference."
The stretch of road from I-220 to the city limits will use 68,000 sq. yds. of concrete and Earnest said concrete placement during the hot summer months hasn't been easy.
"We've been starting at 3 or 4 a.m.," he added. "We can shut down when it hits 95 degrees on the concrete, which is about 92 degrees ambient."
Earnest said the crew started out working six-day workweeks, but the weather has been so hot and dry that it has been cut back to five 12-hour days.
The large amount of traffic moving through the area created some difficulties, especially early in the construction.
Earnest said traffic had to be routed from three lanes to two, and as new lanes were completed, traffic has been rerouted to the new roadway. Best Yet will eventually put in two 26-ft. sections and come back to put a 14-ft. section in the median for a turning lane.
"I think it works well when the people can see what we're trying to do in phases like that," Earnest said. "When we moved them to two lanes, I'm sure that many were aggravated in the beginning. Now they can see what we're doing, they know what's coming and they know they need it."
The contractor also had to wait for the removal of utilities in the area.
"We were waiting on the power company to get out of the way and it had something in its way," he said.
He said the company experimented with an EFCO bridge deck form in the construction of one of two bridges at the site. The EFCO Bridge Deck Forming System uses fewer pieces than typical deck forming, which means less time for assembly.
EFCO forms are designed to provide lower in-place concrete costs.
"They're not new to the industry, they're just new to us," Earnest said. "We used old forms on one bridge and the new ones on the other."
He said the EFCO bridge forms were bigger but also simpler to remove.
"You put them together and then when you're ready to take them out, you just drop them and pull them to the side," he said.
Two turnouts were added to the project to accommodate a Walgreen's Drug Store and a Super Target, both scheduled to begin construction in the near future.
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