Pre-cast concrete for Protected Lanes

 Precast concrete pavement slab -- precut to accommodate epoxy-coated load-transfer dowels -- is lowered into place on Utah's I-15 near Clearfield.

[Photo courtesy of Road Science naming precastr concrete roadway one of the five top trends in 2010]

From the article, who is talking about the lower costs of precast?

“Precast concrete pavement systems have been shown to accelerate construction time and be economically feasible, while still maintaining the quality of conventional repair methods,” said Ken Berg of the Utah DOT Research Division.

As the virtual technical auditor for the I-15 Superhighway project, I am determined to keep per mile construction costs below $3 million per the desert run from Victorville east. That means we can service Vegas with basic road costs below a half billion, and still provide huge efficiency gains over rail.

One can actually look along the route (web map) and see plenty of meridian. Add snap together precast concrete lanes to reduce the process to two steps, dirt prep and slab assembly. Merges and over passes can use the same erector set technology.

Since the superhighway is traffic controlled, lanes are immediately reversible. Hence, very low cost single lane exchanges can cover all traffic patterns. Lanes are narrow, due to lane guidance, making simpler construction units. Modular lane units can be dis-assembled and re-assembled for route modifications.

So, the project would build a pre-casting factory mid-way, and produce the modular units. They are moved up I-15 during construction by using the same median right-of-way obtained from the rights holders. That is, move them along the super highway with the usual long constellations of rubber wheeled trains.

So on I-15, a least, we have the hope of newer, more efficient lane construction, simpler transition between existing HOT lanes and  Protected Lanes; with narrow gauge modular design, and digital traffic control from construction through operations.

The goal would be: Within a year from the start of construction to see some portion of the protected super lanes be in operation, built along with the deployment of the new HOT lanes starting very soon in San Bernardino.  In other words, get the word out to the county planners in San Bernardino.