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Welcome to the second volume and third season of Pavement
Digest. With the current rise in price of petroleumbased
products, everyone in the industry should take
interest in the informative article in this issue by Mike Nystrom,
Vice President of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation
Association. In “Pushing to Improve Michigan’s Roads,” Mike
explains state taxes on a gallon of gas and how it is distributed.
We also have a variety of projects highlighted in this issue: a reconstruction
project on “the Lodge” in Oakland County, a concrete
rebuild and unique concrete overlay on I-94 in St. Clair County,
a rebuild of I-75 in Oakland County, a resurface of I-75 in Wayne
County and a resurface of Gratiot Avenue in Macomb County. Also
highlighted is a major reconstruction of Telegraph Road in Pontiac
and Waterford in Oakland County.
As a means of maintaining our system of highways and roadways,
the state uses a maintenance system to address roadways before the
need to rebuild or reconstruct is required. These projects are classified
as Capitol Preventive Maintenance, or CPM, projects. I-75
from 8-Mile South to Piquette and Gratiot Avenue are types of CPM
projects intended to increase the useful life of the existing pavement
structure for several more years. More CPM projects are under way,
and recently completed projects include I-75 Business Loop, also
called Perry Street, in Pontiac and Auburn Hills, M-59 in Livingston
County from US-23 east, I-275 from Ecorse Road to M-14, I-96
from Novi Road west to the Livingston County line and US-12
Business Loop in Ypsilanti.
Three of the highlighted projects, I-94, I-75 and Telegraph Road,
include an explanation of the “lane rental,” a system that the Michigan
Department of Transportation uses to push road builders to
work faster and smarter in order to decrease the impact of road construction
on the motoring public. Some very detailed and high-tech
systems of acquiring data for pavement performance evaluation and
future pavement design are noted in the I-94 article. A very stringent
method of testing bituminous pavements, “Percent Within Limits,”
or PWL, is discussed in the Telegraph Road article.
We hope you enjoy this issue of Pavement Digest.
Daniel Wilson, PE
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