Maintenance of Traffic Issue.... 4

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Hey all!

I have a question regarding maintenance of traffic and clearance requirements.

I have a widening project where we're maintaining traffic adjacent to a work area. The existing full-depth pavement is going to carry 4 lanes next to the work area. The work being done adjacent to the traffic will consist of saw cutting the edge of pavement (removing the shoulder) so that the roadway can be widened in the direction of the existing shoulder. A barrier will be placed (on the existing pavement) to separate the traffic and the construction zone.

My question is this: how much clearance needs to be provided between the face of barrier (on the work zone side of the barrier) and the extents of the saw cut to allow for the work crew to do the saw cutting and then complete the pavement construction? I'm currently assuming a foot will be sufficient to allow for the saw cutting of the existing pavement.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! I have checked a few state specs and standards and was unable to find any reference to this.

Thanks in advance, breaks

 

[gbam]

I would say the width of the sawcutting machine plus a small buffer, 1ft. In the past I have used 2ft to face of barrier from the sawcut line. If this cannot be acheived consider reducing lane width along the work zone. I have reduced lanes to 10 feet on a freeway where it was really tight.

 

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Thanks gbam.

I am currently using 1-foot clear which may end up working. All the concrete cutting machines/saws I've seen have a blade on one side which only juts out about 3" from the body. That leaves about 9" buffer. But I will carefully consider increasing the 1-foot dimension based on what you've posted.

If anyone else has thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

 

[darth051]

The best person to ask about how much space will be needed to do the work is someone who does the work. Call up one of the local contractors you have a good relationship with and ask them how much they'll need.

 

[ACtrafficengr]

Don't forget that temporary concrete barrier will deflect when hit. I'd provide at least a foot between the barrier and the work area. Alternately, you can get barrier with holes formed into the lower slope and pin the barrier to the ground. The client agency will probably object if you proppose doing this to a new pavement or (especially) bridge deck.

Another option is to fill the barreir joints with stiff grout.

"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters, and the Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.


Blair Houghton

 

[BigH]

Breaks - one other thing to keep in mind is the depth of the cut and excavation in the improvement section. If you are only going to excavate "asphalt thickness" - say 10 inches, that is one thing. But if you are excavating down for new base, subbase and maybe even an improved subgrade courses, you might find your excavation in the order of 3 to 4ft deep. Then you might want to consider this in your offset - maybe use 2 to 3 ft for offset; may want to upgrade the shoulder on the other side so that you can run two lanes of traffic safely (or determine the shoulder design and see if it will take your traffic for the construction period).

 

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Thanks for all the input, it is greatly appreciated!

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