NIOSH Supply Chain Project: Richmond Highway – Heavy Design-Bid-Build

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Virginia Tech. Center for Innovation in Construction Safety, Health, and Well-being
• Description:
  Overview: The project involved in this case study was a state highway maintenance and reconstruction project in a major city. Originally, the project was divided into two sub-projects. Sub-project #1, designed by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), was the reconstruction of a six-lane highway and replacement of utilities along a 1.5 mile stretch with many commercial storefronts on both sides. Sub-project #2, designed by a variety of private engineering firms, was road reconstruction and replacement of 2.5 miles of gas, water, and sewer system along the smaller roads near the highway. Context: One issue that the project team ran into was the inaccuracy of the as-built drawings. The location of the project is in an area originally owned by the county, so the documents were not completed to the city's standards in terms of accuracy. In addition, the contour lines were also off, which meant that the elevation changes were significant enough to warrant changes to the lane transitions in the original MOT plan. The project also included the replacement of 120,000 feet of four utilities near the roads. As opposed to having the individual utility owners remove and replace their respective utilities, the utility replacement was merged with the highway repair so that the same entity would be working on both projects. The as-builts did not accurately document the locations of the existing utility lines. Lack of coordination among design engineers also meant that some of the new utility lines would need to be installed before all of the old lines were removed, thus disrupting the construction sequence. Objectives: The MOT plan was largely based off of traffic counts. If over 1,500 cars passed through a given area within an hour, two lanes needed to be open if possible. Traffic counts during the day recorded over 1,500 cars per hour during the day, but at night the traffic count was significantly less and permitted closing an extra lane. Having an extra lane closed gave workers an additional 10 foot safety barrier. The altered construction sequence meant that the new gas lines had to be installed before removing the existing utilities. This was accomplished by using directional boring. This method eliminated the need for trenches, reduced the chance of conflicts with existing lines, and was safer. One-calls and test holes in front of each planned excavation were used to help crews accurately locate the existing underground lines. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Case Reports Construction Industry Engineering Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Case Studies Construction Industry Design Criteria Engineering Controls Highway Work Zones Road Construction
• Publisher:
  Innovation Center for Construction Safety and Health at Virginia Tech
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Case Studies
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-16
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20062028
• Citation:
  Blacksburg, VA: Innovation Center for Construction Safety and Health at Virginia Tech, 2015 May; :1-16
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  NIOSH supply chain project: Richmond highway - heavy design-bid-build
• End Date:
  20150131
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:28bd20db27c8315dea0a718b6ca877d88e8678c6370f55e8f7287043f381a016652b26476148437f3a5c295e8fba58f0d26bd434878270d600ecdf1b6c5d1a36
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/225352/cdc_225352_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 570.66 KB ]