East Washington Avenue in Madison, Wis., is being reconstructed over a five-year period from 2004 through 2009.

Completing each phase within each bid year provides the city with a novel solution to financing a long project over several budget cycles, said Rob Phillips, deputy city engineer for the city of Madison.

The condition of both the pavement and infrastructure contributed to the decision to rebuild the major artery from interstate highways 39/90/94 into Downtown Madison.

"Following large storm events localized flooding occurs," said Phillips.

Tim Peterson of James Peterson Sons, Inc., Medford, Wis., the prime contractor on the job, said that some of the utility runs appear to date to the early 1900s.

The first phase of the East Washington Avenue project builds out 4,750 feet from Blair Street to the Yahara River.

Drivers will notice the revamped roadway, but below grade work is extensive: municipal water, sanitary sewer and storm sewer.

Reconstruction of the traffic thoroughfare through busy commercial and residential areas held some challenges.

Peterson stressed that safety was the first consideration in a project that extends for 5,000 feet.

"We have 40 to 50 pieces of equipment operating in areas open to pedestrians, and all lighted intersections are open," said Peterson.

Phillips noted the accommodations to pedestrians, "There is a neighborhood resident who is not sighted; and operators take him across intersections that are under construction."

Team Effort

Another challenge is coordinating subcontractors without them getting in each other's way, said Peterson.

Weekly progress meetings are held among the city, Peterson, and its subcontractors to review who will be working where and when they would be working at specific locations on the job site.

Heavy rain this spring and early summer — May rainfall in Madison was three times that month's average in that city — made the coordination of subcontractors a real challenge.

At one point this spring, more than 20 backhoes were working along East Washington Avenue because of schedule changes forced by weather conditions.

Phillips commended Peterson and its subcontractors for finding a place to work in spite of interruptions to the project timeline caused by unusual rainfall this construction season.

Peterson explained one of many such work-arounds brought by unexpected rainfall, "We needed such a big backhoe to place the 'box' (referring to the storm sewer) that we had to lay down 'select crush' to support the backhoe."

In spite of rain days, the 40 work days scheduled to place the almost 5,000 running feet was still on schedule as of early June.

The scale of the East Washington project involves a number of other organizations — specifically independent local utilities — providing services like telephone, commercial data links and energy.

Utilities, existing water, sanitary, and storm sewer are cheek-by-jowl in the same cut.

A utilities coordinator, funded by a city-state partnership was added to the project team to anticipate, contact and get the utilities to come in to relocate lines when they are supposed to, said Peterson.

It was a plus to have someone dedicated to coordinating the variety of utilities, telephone, cable, municipal water, electric, gas, and fiber, according to Peterson.

"It frees up our superintendent and engineer for day-to-day issues," he said.

Utility companies have been working with the contractor almost since the bid was let for the project.

"The bid was let in January, and we met with the utilities in February," Peterson noted.

East Washington Avenue improvements are designed to reduce flooding after heavy rains.

The storm sewer being replaced, a 3-foot by 4-foot box, is about a quarter of the cross section of its replacement.

The new storm sewer sections are pre-cast, 8-foot lengths, with an internal cross section of 5 feet by 10 feet.

Timing Important

The timing of deliveries for each section of the box delivered from Northwinds Concrete Products from South Beloit is important to keep work moving ahead.

"It's 125 miles roundtrip," said Peterson. "There is a real trick to coordinate deliveries so an operator is not just sitting there."

The storm sewer box is pitched at zero degrees.

The box meets the Yahara River at the east, and is protected from back drainage during construction by a "tight sheet," a cofferdam of plate steel.

The water level of the Yahara River rose to the top of the tight sheet following May rains.

Phillips pointed out that intercepting sewers are draining now into the box.

That requires that during this first phase of construction in which the pavement is already removed, that the storm sewer be installed before the utilities come in to do their work re-routing their services.

Plans for the second phase are for heavy equipment to work from the existing pavement, allow utilities do reroute their services and then set the storm sewer box.

This means that installation of the storm sewer must take place in the cut that is the storm sewer.

To reduce the water level so that installation can continue, a pump is placed every 200 feet to pump out the storm sewer.

Sump water is pumped to sedimentation ponds.

Of course, in a job like this one there is always the potential surprise in the abatement and decontamination of long-abandoned gas stations, and the proliferation of above- and below-grade utilities.

Said Peterson, "There has been less contaminated soil than we expected, and we haven't really uncovered a lot of uncommon stuff."

Contaminated soils are taken to the Prairie Landfill for disposal.