Friday, August 26, 2011

More To Rakow Road Than Meets The Eye

The Rakow Road team has been busy this summer.  Despite record rainfall, crews have worked day and night to keep moving forward.  On a project like Rakow Road, much time and effort involves replacing, relocating or otherwise improving the underground utilities.  This includes storm sewers, water mains, traffic signal cables, as well as electrical, natural gas, telephone, cable television and fiber optic lines. 

Most crossings were done at night to minimize disruption to heavy daytime traffic.  Since the Rakow Road project started, the underground contractor has installed 16,660 feet (more than 3 miles!) of storm sewer pipe.  That would stretch across more than 46 football fields!  If you wanted to run a 5K race, you would just have to follow the storm sewer lines!

After the underground work is complete the above ground work becomes much more visible.  For example, in ten days of work, the paving contractors hauled in and placed 33,344 tons of stone for the base of Rakow Road's new eastbound lanes.  That is over 1,660 full truckloads of stone from our local quarries, using our local workers to transport, place and compact it. 

In the next several weeks you’ll see the contractors preparing for concrete pours.  They will smooth and compact the base rock, set up stringlines to guide the paving equipment and install some wood and metal forms for curves and intersection pours.  When that work is done, you’ll see concrete trucks and the base for the new Rakow Road!

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