All In a Night’s Work: Route 60 Rehabilitation Project Nears Completion

Completion is in sight for crews on the Route 60 Rehabilitation project. Crews have been removing and replacing 12 miles of damaged concrete pavement slabs on this busy section of freeway between the 605 and 57 freeways since January 2012.

All traffic lanes are being replaced; two lanes by individual slab replacements using rapid strength concrete pavement and two to four lanes with jointed plain rapid strength concrete paving.

With the individual slab replacement completed last March, crews have been working on the jointed plain concrete paving work and bridge approaches at night, which comes with specific safety considerations.

“The biggest challenge on a project like this is safety. We face errant drivers at night and a high volume of big-rig truck traffic on this route,” said project manager Mateo Vega. “The presence of the California Highway Patrol during the nightly closures helps us a lot, keeping the work areas free of drivers.”

In addition to safety concerns, night work can present challenges to productivity.

“Extra effort has to be made to ensure projects stay on track when you are working at night,” said Mateo. “Our management and supervisory team planned the work well, focusing on the work at hand to stay efficient.”

The project team has impressed many.

“The work is repetitive, but we have a great project team, and they’ve found ways to cut costs and get better production,” said George Butrovich, area manager. “It’s been a successful job.”

“The project’s success is largely due to the crew. I joined the project in April, and was immediately impressed with the work they’d done on the job,” added Mateo.

The project structure means commuters experience the benefits of the new pavement prior to project completion. With lane closures and work occurring at night—to minimize traffic impact— commuters driving on damaged roadway on their way from work one day were greeted with a much smoother commute the very next day.

Flatiron is particularly suited for working on this type of paving. Flatiron is one of a few contractors in Southern California that owns the unique equipment to mass-produce and place rapid set concrete, as well as having a vast number of managers and supervisors with experience in performing the work.

Along with experience, Flatiron’s strong relationships are key to successful projects.

“Flatiron has built an excellent close relationship with owners, suppliers and subcontractors to form a strong competitive team,” explained Mateo. “In fact, our project received a Silver Award from Caltrans for partnering.”

Crews have a series of milestones to meet over the next five months to finish the project: jointed plain concrete pavement and grinding will be completed in August; the jointed plain concrete pavement joint seal, traffic loops and bridge approach joint seals will be completed in September; and final thermoplastic striping slated last before scheduled completion in October.

“We’ve only got a few months of work left. We’re finishing up the lane replacement and approach slab work now and then it’s just the finishing touches,” said George. “We’re finishing up this job and sending most of the team and equipment to a similar job nearby. So we get to keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is good.”