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Gratiot Avenue Receives a Facelift
Constructed in 1846, a wooden plank
toll road (now known as Gratiot
Avenue) connected the Roseville
community with Detroit and Mount
Clemens. Now a major north-south
thoroughfare in Detroit, Gratiot Avenue
is jammed with commuter cars and buses.
It is also a commercial corridor, lined
with numerous businesses. This major
traffic artery has faced considerable
wear and tear due to its heavy traffic
volume. With traffic increasing, the
City of Detroit decided to restore the
long-standing thoroughfare.
In May 2003, Ajax Paving began repaving
the 4.5-mile section of Gratiot Avenue
between I-94 and 8 Mile Road. Managing
the traffic on the nine-lane roadway during
construction was a significant challenge.
A Logistical Nightmare
“During construction two travel lanes
and a left-turn lane that had to be maintained
at all times in each direction. I knew
it would be a logistical nightmare,” explains
Tim Hay, Project Manager for Ajax
Paving. “Besides rerouting the traffic we
also had to maintain pedestrian access to
the numerous commercial businesses.”
The roadway consists of three travel lanes
and a parking lane in each direction plus
a left-turn lane. “We shifted all the traffic
to the southbound side of the road, milled
the northbound side of the road, and
resurfaced up to the leveling course. We
then shifted the traffic to the northbound
side of the road while we worked the,
southbound side,” Hay recounts.
“Then we pushed the traffic to the outside
north and south lanes and milled and
leveled the center of the road. Once we
put the leveling course of asphalt in, we
allowed traffic to travel on the leveling
surface, as construction of the wearing
course was completed.”
A Change in Plans
The original plan was to pave each
section of roadway complete from the
milled surface through the wearing
course. However, Hay and Cedric Dargin,
Region Construction Engineer at the
Michigan Department of Transportation
and State Engineer on the project, decided
that a better riding surface would result
if, instead, Ajax installed the leveling
course according to original staging
plans, then went back and paved the
wearing course across the entire road,
rather than putting down the finished
roadway in sections.
“With a big job like this you don’t want
to commit to the top course before all the
leveling is done. We were worried about
drainage problems in the center lane
should the sections of roadway not
align perfectly,” says Leo Mays, Senior
Technician at the Michigan Department
of Transportation.
“During the first stage we milled a section,
prepared the road surface, and placed the
wedge and leveling courses. The same
was done for the two other sections of
road. Then we placed the wearing course
in three stages,” says Dargin. Fortunately,
the additional traffic closings didn’t alter
the schedule.
“We get incentives for the rideability of
the roadway,” says Dan Wilson, Ajax’s
Estimator for the project, explaining that
the state uses certain measurements to
test how well the road rides. With the
change in construction staging Ajax was
able to control the quality of finished
surface. The Gratiot Avenue repaving
was so successful that corrective action to
improve the rideability was not necessary.
Unexpected Problems Surface
The hassles associated with rerouting the
roadway’s heavy traffic were a given, but
other challenges arose once it was discovered
that the existing roadway was in
worse shape than originally thought. “The
road was far more deteriorated than the
state highway designers had anticipated,”
says Wilson.
“My main concern when we first started
milling the existing concrete base was
that it was entirely deteriorated, especially
in the parking lane,” confirms Mays. “We
ended up installing more concrete patches
than we planned. The curbs were also in
poor condition, so we had to increase the
quantity for those as well.”
For Ajax, the deterioration meant that
crews ended up laying down 35 percent
more asphalt tonnage than was stipulated
in its $4.7-million contract. Superpave
mixes were used in the resurfacing. The
amounts were increased from 24,390
metric tons of 4E3 for the leveling course
to 30,633 metric tons, and from 18,505
metric tons for the 5E3-wearing course to
30,633 metric tons — an increase exceeding
15,000 metric tons.
“Most of the extra asphalt was used in
the wedging. We added a wedge course
to build up the grade. The course was
used to alter the slope of the road and
bridge over rotten layers in the subgrade,”
says Wilson.
In general, a depth of eight inches of old
roadway had to be removed, twice the
amount that was specified in the original
plan. Fortunately, Ajax, along with subcontractors
on the project, supplied the
necessary manpower so that no time was
lost, says Wilson.
As the old concrete and asphalt were
ground down and removed, there were
other headaches. “Once we removed the
layers of asphalt, the water mains broke,
and holes opened up in several locations
of the roadway. The water department
had to shut the water off, repair the
water main, fill the hole with stone, and
install a concrete patch,” Wilson states.
Wilson concludes, “The project went very
smoothly. In fact, the project was completed
a few weeks ahead of schedule.” |
