Good news for those who work in Freeman Field Industrial Park, Airport Road on the city’s far west side is scheduled to reopen to both north and southbound traffic this week.
The project, which is the third phase of the much larger Burkart South Bypass, has taken a month longer than expected due to several problems and setbacks.
“As you travel north on Airport Road, you can finally see the project coming together,” said Jon Wick, project manager with Dave O’Mara Contractor Inc. of North Vernon.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Work on the $1.8 million road widening and reconstruction was first delayed by two weeks for utility relocation and got underway in mid-April.
Construction was supposed to be wrapped up in August with the road completely reopened in four months. But in July, the newly constructed pavement began to show faults after just a month of being in place.
Two areas of the road were removed, investigated and repaired, Wick said.
“It is believed that a high ground water table at the time of construction caused the failure,” he said. “The areas were excavated to the subgrade and replaced with stone aggregate and patched back with asphalt.”
On Friday, workers repaired the southbound lane and today they will finish milling, patching and complete the approaches, Wick said.
City engineer Bernie Hauersperger hopes the fix is enough to hold up.
“We added an extra two inches of binder to the entire project to get some added strength,” he said.
The additional costs of fixing the problems are still being calculated, but the state is expected to pay for 80% of most of the work. The city may have to fund 100% of the costs to remove the pavement, Hauersperger said.
A better solution to the problem would be to make the entire road concrete, but that would be at a significantly higher cost to the city.
The redevelopment commission issued a bond in the fall of 2019 to fund the project
“Truth is, I wish we had 10 inches of concrete pavement, but we are doing what engineers recommended that is cost effective,” Hauersperger said. “We will see how it does when the water table rises to previous heights.”
Earthwork will continue on both sides of the road to prepare for mulched seeding and on Tuesday, crews will place an intermediate layer of asphalt over the rubbilized area, Wick said.
That is the second to last layer of asphalt to be placed on the roadway.
“We will finish earthwork late this week with surface to follow,” Wick said. “Airport Road will open to two-way traffic on Wednesday.”
Construction will not be complete, however, Wick added.
“Crews will still be onsite finishing the asphalt surface, guardrail, seeding, pavement markings, new sign installation and traffic signal loops,” he said.
The schedule is weather dependent and flaggers will be present to help get traffic through the area safely.
Part of the project includes construction of a multi-use path that runs along the east side of Airport Road. The path goes from the Freeman Field sign in the median of the road near G Avenue north to the Huck’s gas station driveway.
Most of the path is made of asphalt with a small concrete portion over the box culvert at Schleter Road and the areas where the side slopes along the Von Fange Ditch and requires handrail. Handicap accessible ramps are included at all crossings, including Colonial Drive, McDonald Street and Kimberly Avenue.
The trail will not be completed until later this fall due to time needed to fabricate and install the required handrail, Wick said.
{span style=”color: red;”} {/span}