Moving forward
Asphalt sections of U. S. 171 push south

By Sam Barnes

The four-laning of U. S. Highway 171 continues in Beauregard Parish, as R. E. Heidt Construction Co. of Westlake builds new lanes and rebuilds old ones between Gillis and Ragley.

The mostly rural, $17 million road section will link to a new U. S. Highway 190 overpass under construction in Ragley.

Brent Arabie, R. E. Heidt project manager, said the Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development project is a little different from other jobs on the heavily traveled road.

"DOTD has broken the project into 16 zones and schedules each phase that way," Arabie said. "One zone might have more excavation here and another zone might need a little more embankment. It makes it easier to manage the project.

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"It also helps us better manage material orders. We can break our quantities down a little better, which helps a lot with scheduling deliveries."

The road has an atypical shoulder underdrain system consisting of a 7-in.-thick layer of limestone wrapped in a filter fabric. The limestone will allow water to drain from beneath the road.

"The road has a 10-in.-thick limestone base, and when there's that much stone beneath an asphalt highway there has to be a way for the water to drain," Arabie said. "Water will seep beneath the asphalt and be trapped unless there's a way out."

Cypress General Contractors of Westlake is placing the limestone, as well as building the embankment for the project.

"Distributing the limestone for the shoulder base has been tedious because the rock doesn't compact real good," said Cypress President Gavin Abshire. "We're using steel forms to slipform the rock to keep it in place."

Two in. of wearing-course asphalt will be placed on top of the shoulder limestone.

Work began at the site in August when a Cypress crew began building the road embankment for the new northbound lanes. Traffic will be switched to the new lanes in December and R. E. Heidt will then mill and overlay the existing two-lane road to serve as the southbound lanes.

Arabie said Cypress has performed virtually all of the work at the site so far.

"They've done everything there is to see out there," he added. "They've even performed most of the scheduling. Our main scope of work is the asphalt part of it, but I'm out there every day to assist them."

Abshire said that the numerous creeks crisscrossing the jobsite slowed the embankment construction somewhat. In each location, reinforced concrete pipes and 7- by 7-ft. and 8- by 8-ft. precast box culverts are placed for drainage, but no bridges are being built.

"There's also a lot of fill in those low areas to build up the road bed," Abshire added. About 189,000 cu. yds. of fill are being placed for the embankment, 186,000 cu. yds. of which comes from on-site excavation. The remaining dirt comes from off-site borrow pits.

After the fill is in place and compacted, the Cypress crew is "cutting" soil cement to stabilize the soil and placing 10 in. of limestone. Dunham-Price Inc. of Westlake is supplying more than 63,000 tons of limestone to the job.

R. E. Heidt began placing asphalt on the new lanes in June.

"There'll be 9 in. of asphalt, consisting of 4 in. of base, 3 in. of binder and 2 in. of wearing course," Arabie said. An R. E. Heidt plant in Westlake will supply more than 119,000 tons of asphalt to the site.

Each day, about 20 trucks will deliver asphalt to a Roadtech paving machine and material transfer vehicle during the paving of two 12-ft. driving lanes, a 10-ft. outside shoulder and a 4-ft. inside shoulder.

Crews will pave from south to north.

"We'll just put the base and binder down before switching traffic over late this year," Arabie said. "Then we'll come back and put the final 2 in. of wearing just prior to project completion."

When traffic is switched over to the new lanes Midwest Milling of Gainesville, Texas, will mill 2 in. from the existing two-lane road and R. E. Heidt will follow with 2 in. of Superpave-design asphalt.

The process should take about 60 days, with some pavement cutting necessary to install underdrains beneath the existing road.

"There are 11 crossovers and turning lanes to build into the existing lanes and that will take some additional time," Arabie said. "We expect to have everything done by June."

R. E. Heidt Construction is also four-laning a 6-mi., $10.5 million stretch of U.S. 171 to the north.

Occie Norton, a project manager with R. E. Heidt, said asphalt was chosen over concrete for the "A+B+C" project. The project stretches from Ragley to Longville and will be completed later this year.

A+B+C bidding puts asphalt and concrete producers and contractors on a level playing field.

The "A" part of the equation is the estimated cost of construction and "B" the time factor of the project. The "C" portion represents the merger of two ideas - the alternate design/alternate bid process and a lifecycle cost analysis.

The state factors into the bids estimates of lifecycle costs, including maintenance and user delays, based on a 30- or 40-year analysis period.

The Ragley-to-Longville project calls for construction of two new lanes, re-routing of existing utilities and installation of concrete drainage catch basins and piping.

"That work is pretty far along," Norton said. "All of the binder is down and we're waiting to complete the underground drainage. Then we'll put the shoulder in and switch traffic. We expect to finish the project in November."

An $8.4 million overpass being built at U.S. 171 and U.S. 190 separates the two projects. F. Miller & Sons Construction of Lake Charles will complete the overpass next year.

Useful Resource:

For updates on the progress of the U. S. 171 projects in Beauregard Parish, go to: http://www.dotd.state.la.us/construction/charles.html#BEAUREGARD