Getting Down to Business

Dec. 28, 2000
Rosemont, Ill., is a village that's built for business. Although the village is home to 3,999 residents, it's location, sandwiched between Chicago's northwest side and O'Hare International Airport, has made the suburb a prominent location for exhibitions and business meetings.

The heart of the village's business activity is the Rosemont Convention Center, which has spawned the existence of hotels and most recently a new 4,200-seat performing arts theatre along River Road, the town's major thoroughfare.

Rosemont, Ill., is a village that's built for business. Although the village is home to 3,999 residents, it's location, sandwiched between Chicago's northwest side and O'Hare International Airport, has made the suburb a prominent location for exhibitions and business meetings.

The heart of the village's business activity is the Rosemont Convention Center, which has spawned the existence of hotels and most recently a new 4,200-seat performing arts theatre along River Road, the town's major thoroughfare. A pavement condition study revealed that much of the six-lane roadway was in need of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

"In assessing the existing pavement, portions of the road were 30 years old," said Daniel Crosson, head of the construction engineering section for Christopher B. Burke Engineering Ltd., Rosemont, the village's engineer. "It also had been widened four times and had a combination of materials and thicknesses."

The existing pavement was 8 to 10 in. of portland cement concrete (PCC) that had been overlaid with 3 in. of hot-mix asphalt (HMA).

According to Mike Kerr, Christopher Burke's head of municipal engineering, the pavement assessment concluded that more than 35% of the pavement area was in need of patching. With 35% being the cutoff for patching on a road, the city elected to reconstruct approximately half of the road on the project and rehabilitate the other half.

Short on time

Time truly was of the essence on the project. The general contractor, Palumbo Brothers, Hillside, Ill., had to perform the work on the 6,000-lin-ft project in 28 days. The principal reconstruction and rehab work began Aug. 28 and had to be completed Sept. 19 because of an exhibition scheduled at the convention center.

The project also included replacement of curb and gutter, storm sewer work and fiber optic telephone utility installation along the roadway.

In addition to traffic to and from the convention center and hotels, the road, which has an average daily traffic (ADT) count between 25,000 and 30,000 vehicles, is a major artery for suburb-to-suburb commuters and commuters who park their cars in Rosemont and commute by train into Chicago. For these reasons, traffic management was critical to the project.

According to Christopher Burke, the town worked with the chamber of commerce to notify the hotels and surrounding office parks of the impending work. Access was maintained to all venues along the road. During morning and evening peak rush-hour periods, two lanes of traffic were required to be open. If needed, traffic could be reduced to one lane during off-peak hours from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"A lot of money was spent on signage," said Crosson. The traffic control sub, WLI, Villa Park, Ill., set up changeable message signs along the road to inform motorists in advance of the project's start. "The village also assisted by assigning extra police officers to direct traffic," said Crosson. To aid traffic flow, the police department requested additional signage be placed on the project.

Milling and paving

Milling activity was fast and furious in the early days of the project as Palumbo milling crews removed 75,000 tons of asphalt pavement from the roadway using a CMI PR-800-7 Roto-Mill pavement profiler. The reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) was conveyed into Mack trucks and taken to the contractor's O'Hare asphalt plant where it was stockpiled for reuse at a later time. The company also made RAP available to fellow contractor Ganna Construction for use on another project in the area.

RAP material sometimes acts as a revenue source for the company, according to Don Deegan, Palumbo general superintendent. "It's a supply and demand thing," he said. "If we are grinding quite a distance away from the plant and we want to shorten up our trucking hauls, maybe we'll try to find someone to take the material. But if supply is short and we have use for the material we may charge for it.

There are additional uses for RAP other than in HMA or as a base course. "People use a lot of RAP on gravel lots in place of stone because there is no dust," said Deegan.

While only a small amount of RAP from the existing pavement was used as base material on the reconstructed sections, RAP from the contractor's existing stockpile was incorporated into the HMA for the new pavement.

State specs allow RAP to be used in hot-mix asphalt (50% base course and 25% binder course for ADT greater than 10,000). On the River Road project, Palumbo elected to use 25% RAP material in the binder course and BAM (Bituminous Asphalt Material) layer.

In the reconstructed sections, the concrete and asphalt was removed and replaced by 15-in. of HMA (12-in. base layer, 2 1/2-in. binder) using a Barber Greene BG-265 asphalt paver. The remaining 1 1/2-in. surface course was to be laid at a later time.

The rehabilitated sections received a 0 to 1/2-in. leveling course, followed by a 1 1/2-in. surface course.

According to Crosson, the use of concrete was prohibitive on the project because of the time it would have taken for the pavement to cure.

Kerr was happy with the paving results, especially considering the time constraints. "We laid 12,000 tons of asphalt in three weeks," he said.

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