Accelerated Urban Freeway Reconstruction:

California ‘Rapid Rehab’ Approach

Eul-Bum Lee¹ and John T. Harvey²

¹ Research Engineer, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

² Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil & Envrn. Eng., University of California at Davis.

Abstract
Since 1998, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has been implementing the Long-Life Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies (LLPRS) program to rebuild approximately 2,800 lane-km of high volume urban freeway with pavements designed to last 30-plus years.  This case study presents an innovative fast-track approach applied to a heavily trafficked urban freeway reconstruction project in Southern California.  Badly deteriorated truck lanes in both directions along a 4.5-km stretch of Interstate 15 (I-15) were rebuilt from the gravel base up. The operations, estimated to take 10 months using traditional nighttime closures, were completed in two continuous, round-the-clock operations (about 9 days each, 210 hours).  This paper details the integrated approach to pavement design, construction logistics, and traffic operations, from planning through final construction, used in the I-15 Project. This “Rapid Rehab” project adopted state-of-practice technologies to accelerate construction, mitigate traffic disruptions, and propagate project information. It shows that this method of accelerated reconstruction yielded lower road user costs stemming from work zone traffic delay; produced longer-life pavement, improved safety for motorists and workers, and significantly reduced construction costs (about $6 million), compared to the traditional approach of using repeated nighttime closures.         

Keywords: Fast-track construction; Concrete pavement; Highway reconstruction; Public opinion; Project evaluation.