 The summer summary for Road Services
<<Sounds of road work>> Narrator Says: It’s another busy summer for the King County Road Services Division. Whether it’s modifying an intersection to increase safety, replacing an aging bridge, or repaving roads, the work is plentiful. We’ll start at 212th and Woodinville Duvall Road in the northeast part of King County. This busy intersection has seen more accidents in recent years. Mike Burk is the Design Engineer at 212th and Woodinville Duvall. King County Roads Design Engineer Mike Burk Says: The people who are eastbound are stopping to make a left-hand turn onto 212th, it's just a two-lane road with no turn pockets. So, there's no refuge to get out of the way of traffic and they're getting rear-ended. And we've had quite a few injury accidents involved with that also. Narrator Says: This stretch of road closed in late June and is set to reopen in late August. The county decided to take advantage of this time frame to work around fish windows and get done in time for school to start. Burk says the result will be a much safer intersection with new turn pockets, as well as new sidewalks and curbs. King County Roads Design Engineer Mike Burk Says: We're moving the intersection approximately 250 ft. to the west from the existing location. This is going to improve the stopping sight distance for westbound traffic. But also the eastbound traffic, people turning south onto 212th will have a turn pocket, so they'll wait in that turn pocket for the signal to make that left. So that's going to prevent these accidents from occurring. Narrator Says: About 30 miles to the south, it’s not high-accident occurrence, but rather aging infrastructure that needs work. The Bandaret Bridge was originally built in 1952, and is one of about 40 timber bridges left in the county. Larry Jaramillo is Supervising Engineer for the Bandaret Bridge project; he says the time had come to replace the bridge with a more modern structure. King County Roads Supervising Engineer Larry Jaramillo Says: The roadway itself was insufficient for today's vehicles. The roadway was 24-foot wide, had no shoulders. Had two 12-foot lanes, but minimal shoulders for pedestrians, non-motorized traffic couldn't use it, the road had quite a few curves in it. So, we wanted to take that opportunity to take a bridge that was at the end of its useful life and replace it with a newer structure. We took the opportunity to bench out areas on each stream bank to provide a wildlife corridor. This is the Issaquah Creek. It is designated as a wildlife corridor. So we took the opportunities to advance that for the animals and the critters that are out here. We also are going to widen the bridge from a 20-foot-wide bridge to a 40-foot-wide bridge. It'll provide us with two 12-foot travel lanes and two eight-foot-wide shoulders. So the shoulders will allow pedestrians and bicyclers to utilize the bridge much better than what the old bridge could do. Narrator Says: One aspect of the project that posed a bit of an extra challenge was that closing Southeast May Valley Road, where the bridge sits over Issaquah Creek was not a viable option. That meant crews would have to build the bridge in two stages, allowing traffic to pass on one half while constructing the new bridge on the other. King County Roads Supervising Engineer Larry Jaramillo Says: A big challenge of the project was with the 5,000 vehicles a day going through it we looked at different alternatives to replace it. We looked at can we do this replacement under a full closure. We looked at a nine-mile detour. That was pretty difficult with the number of vehicles on the roadway and so we did decide to go with a staged construction in two phases. And it is a tight construction and so it makes it difficult and so what we did is we did add some temporary signals at either end of the project to coordinate the traffic flow. But the idea of the staged construction is to build half the new bridge basically along side the old bridge while keeping traffic on the old bridge and at a certain point you transition that traffic from the old bridge onto the new bridge, half the new bridge and then remove the old bridge, build the second half of the new bridge in that location and the tie it all together. Narrator Says: About 10 miles farther south more work for the Road Services Division, this time part of the Countywide Overlay Program. The county paves about 30 to 35 miles of roadway each summer replacing road surfaces that are showing signs of age deterioration. Paul Moore is the manager of the overlay project at Southeast 248th and Witte Road in Maple Valley, a job the county contracted with the city of Maple Valley to provide. King County Roads Inspection Engineer Paul Moore Says: Typically it's just the amount of cracking and fatigue that you'll notice. You'll see some alligator cracking and also some wheel ruts from truck and bus traffic where the road is just worn out. Our pavement management group are the ones that go out and rate the roads, they have a scoring system. They go out and walk each road over a three-year period. Arterials are every two years, and they come up with a list of candidates. From there we work with King County maintenance, King County Management Group and the construction management group work to come up with our list of roads to come up with our list for the annual overlay. Narrator Says: The Overlay Program is another area where new technology will save money in the long run. As with Bandaret Bridge, where the new bridge is expected to last about 80 to 100 years, the newer asphalt the county uses should also last longer and withstand heavier modern traffic and volume. King County Roads Inspection Engineer Paul Moore Says: Right now I just think there's better science, better research into the materials that are used to produce a longer-lasting asphalt. We're seeing a better quality of mix and materials that are going into the construction of the roadway. Typically it's just changes in traffic loading, whether or not there's heavy truck traffic or buses that cause the road to wear faster than it was typically planned on. Narrator Says: For the Roads Division, there is also a silver lining to these tough economic times. Many of its projects, including these three, have seen substantial savings because of the downturn. Mike Burk says that the 212th and Woodinville Duvall project will cost about 35 percent less than it would normally, a savings of about $700,000.
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