12 / 24
Concrete Pavement Progress
www.acpa.org10
s t a t e l i n e s , c o n t .
was a road that looked and felt the same to the—
no matter which section motorists were driving.
Because one section of the road in Minnesota
used local dollars, the decision was made to use
Iowa specifications for the road,” Kenison said.
“We also got permission for some things such
as tining, which is normally not allowed due to
road noise, but Worth County’s experience with
Worth County. After Freeborn County identified
funds for the project, the decision to coordinate
the projects led to a number of preconstruction
conversations.
Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn-
DOT) and Iowa Department of Transportation
(DOT) have different specifications but the goal
concrete and tining, as well as the fact that this
is a rural road, made it possible to change our
specifications.”
Although Brumm had placed more than 130
miles of concrete overlay in the two Iowa counties
he oversees, Freeborn County’s experience was
primarily asphalt construction. Even withmany
years of experience, the State Line Road project
was the first time a concrete overlay was placed on
concrete in his counties, Brumm said. “The road
was stable so we did not want to reconstruct it so
we decided to use a fabric layer, which is a newer
technique in the U.S. but well proven in Europe.”
“Stringless paving was a first for our county,” says
Kenison. “It worked perfectly on our projects,
especially the narrow roads and steep ditches on
either side of the road.”The contractor used four
total stations to control the paver throughout all
of the projects.
The first big challenge during construction oc-
curred when theMinnesota bituminous contrac-
tor’s delay in paving the bridge end tapers—the
only asphalt construction in the project—threat-
ened the schedule for concrete placement. “When
the delay occurred, we changed specifications
from a combination of asphalt and concrete to
9-inch concrete for the bridge ends,” says Kenison.
“The change actually saved us about $50,000.”
Even though the different state agencies and
counties were committed to working together to