Strategic Highway Research Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life -- Special Report 260 (2001) / Chapter Skim
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4 Renewal: Accelerating the Renewal of America’s Highways
4 Renewal: Accelerating the Renewal of America’s Highways
Pages 49-70
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From page 49... ...
Other classes of roads, particularly urban street networks and urban arterials in heavily congested areas, face a similar predicament. Therefore, the renewal of roads so that the highway system can continue to provide its intended economic and social benefits is a pressing local and national concern.
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From page 50... ...
The challenge of highway renewal has been the subject of a number of workshops and industry task forces. Among the most notable are the 1998 Workshop on Pavement Renewal for Urban Freeways, sponsored by FHWA, the California Department of Transportation, and TRB, during which workshop participants developed alternative approaches to a real urban freeway renewal project on California's Interstate 710 (see Box 4-2)
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From page 51... ...
Box 4-2 Get In, Get Out, Stay Out! Workshop on Pavement Renewal for Urban Freeways, California In February 1998, 44 highway system experts -- designers, contractors, construction managers, maintenance engineers, traffic managers, and senior engineering officials -- gathered in Irvine, California, to develop innovative approaches to urban freeway renewal.
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From page 52... ...
Workshop participants identified research and technology needs in the following areas: highway materials, pavement design, traffic management, traffic operations and work zone traffic con trol, economics and finance, nondestructive evaluation, construction equipment, and approaches to dealing with overpass structures. Ideas from this workshop are being employed in several projects in California: · A trial of rapid renewal techniques on Interstate 10 -- replacing a lane with high-performance concrete in 55 hours over one weekend -- used public awareness techniques and an ITS-based traffic control system simi lar to approaches suggested at the workshop.
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From page 53... ...
Renewal of Urban Street Networks The challenge of highway renewal as described here exists for all classes of roads. However, urban streets have unique needs that merit particular focus in a future strategic highway research program.
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From page 54... ...
On the positive side, renewal of urban streets can provide opportunities to improve safety and traffic flow and to promote designs that are more aesthetically pleasing, more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, and more accessible to persons with disabilities. Meeting the Highway Renewal Challenge Through a Future Strategic Highway Research Program In the preceding section a description was given of how highway renewal meets the first of the criteria set forth in Chapter 1 for selecting the strategic focus areas for F-SHRP: it is an issue that bears on national transportation goals and is of continuing concern to highway agencies.
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From page 55... ...
Commercial and community savings could be expected from a reduction in temporary loss of or restricted access to commercial and residential areas affected by renewal projects. Rapid, lessdisruptive renewal techniques also mean less delay from work zones.
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The renewal work involves approximately 17 miles of highway, with up to 12 driving lanes, and 144 bridges. The work needed to be done in time for the Olympics and with minimal disruption to current users.
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From page 57... ...
tion work, disabled vehicles, and crashes. If implementation of the results of this program, together with the results of the travel time reliability research described in Chapter 6, reduced such incident-related delay in these urban areas by just 5 percent, the result would be annual savings of about $2.1 billion for these areas.
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From page 58... ...
Those involved will, however, need to become quickly acclimated to the integrated, implementation-oriented approach being taken and may need to develop some additional expertise in the areas of work zone operations and urban street networks. State agencies are immersed in the issues surrounding highway renewal, and the need for progress in this area is so pressing that it is reasonable to expect their active participation in the proposed program.
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From page 59... ...
Some research has also been done on innovative contracting procedures that include incentives and disincentives aimed at encouraging contractors to find faster ways of performing renewal work. Additional research and development is needed in the following areas: performancerelated specifications for new technologies; efficient construction equipment and methods; nondestructive, real-time sensing to determine readiness for traffic; use of modular or prefabricated construction to speed renewal and minimize disruption; and use of advanced computing technologies, such as web-based management, that could speed up renewal projects by providing for better coordination across disciplines and project stages.
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From page 60... ...
And it should provide for minimal future disruption from additional maintenance and renewal interventions, according to the determination of facility life discussed above. Among the three objectives of rapid, long-lived, and minimally disruptive renewal, the last is perhaps the most neglected in existing research -- especially in combination with the other two.
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From page 61... ...
and their impact on both workers and the quality of the work; improved management methods for affected areas and work area traffic management and construction staging; improved work zone traffic information systems and advanced traveler information systems that would allow users to make informed decisions about alternatives and decrease travel through work areas to the extent possible; methods of utilizing capacity improvements on adjacent roads or in other modes during highway renewal; innovative approaches to dealing with hydraulics, storm water management, and urban utilities to minimize disruption from repeated entries into the roadway; public involvement and communication methods, such as design workshops and use of visualization technologies; alternative approaches to meeting mobility needs during renewal activities, such as providing more transit or promoting carpooling and telecommuting; and planning and design of work zones to accommodate pedestrians, bicycles, persons with disabilities, transit, and goods movement safely and efficiently. Integrating Renewal Objectives and Methods Clearly, the objectives of rapid, long-lived, and minimally disruptive renewal cannot be entirely independent of one another on major renewal projects.
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The need to look beyond individual projects to the overall highway system derives from the fact that so much renewal work will be required during the next two decades. Multiple work zones within a region or corridor will not be unusual.
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Examples of possible synthesis topics include traffic control technologies for work zones, contracting methods, and nondestructive evaluation methods. These syntheses will provide opportunities for early application of improved methods before the full research program is completed.
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From page 64... ...
64 Strategic Highway Research: Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life Box 4-5 Potential Research Topics Addressing Unmet Needs The following specific research topics would address important unmet needs: · Construction methods, such as modular or prefabricated construction and innovative work schedules · Construction equipment, including robotics and automated equipment · Innovative materials for greater durability and early opening of facil ities to traffic · Nondestructive, real-time sensing and evaluation technologies · Innovative management, contracting, and finance methods · Work zone and corridor traffic analysis and traffic management alter natives · Work zone safety techniques · Work zone traffic information and traveler notification systems · Life-cycle cost analysis, including agency and user costs · Performance measures for performance-related specifications · Advanced computing technologies to provide better coordination across disciplines and project stages · Particular focus on rapid replacement of bridges and bridge decks intended to integrate the findings of the syntheses of existing work and of F-SHRP's original research to produce a repeatable, systematic process for analyzing, planning, designing, and carrying out rapid, long-lived, and minimally disruptive highway renewal projects. The process will include appropriate decision support tools and guidelines for analyzing the needs and characteristics of projects, evaluating various techniques and technologies, assessing trade-offs and impacts of these techniques and technologies on the parameters listed below, improving public communication and involvement, planning highway renewal work, and designing work zones.
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From page 65... ...
The success of the infrastructure renewal activities proposed for F-SHRP will depend on the continuation of these highway research programs, since an important part of the proposed F-SHRP is integration of the results of these other programs into a comprehensive and systematic approach to highway renewal. Some of these programs are listed below with examples of their current or planned activities: · FHWA performs research and technology activities in several areas related to infrastructure renewal: high-performance materials, accelerated pavement testing, highway structures, nondestructive evaluation techniques, and work zone analysis.
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From page 66... ...
Throughout the conduct of F-SHRP, close communication, and cooperation where appropriate, will take place with these other highway research and technology efforts. Other Strategic Focus Areas in F-SHRP While this research program is oriented in particular toward meeting the strategic goal of accelerating the renewal of America's highways, it can also contribute to addressing F-SHRP's other strategic focus areas if renewal activities are used to implement the outcomes of those other research efforts.
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From page 67... ...
The success of the highway renewal portion of F-SHRP will be measured by how quickly and extensively accelerated renewal strategies are implemented effectively by state and local highway agencies. As mentioned earlier, particular effort should be made to facilitate local government participation.
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From page 68... ...
More important, perhaps, development of a systematic process that would allow a greater number of projects to be handled consistently with a rapid, long-lived, minimally disruptive approach could help promote a larger and more stable market for such work and thereby provide the market incentive required for private-sector innovation. References ABBREVIATIONS ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics FHWA Federal Highway Administration TRB Transportation Research Board ASCE.
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From page 69... ...
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, American Society of Civil Engineers, JulyAug., pp.
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From page 70... ...
1987. Special Report 212: Transportation Management for Major Highway Reconstruction: Proceedings of the National Conference on Corridor Traffic Management for Major Highway Reconstruction.
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