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Innovation of the Month:
Road Weather Management—Weather-Savvy Roads
 The Every Day Counts (EDC) innovation of the month for March
is road weather management—weather-savvy
roads, strategies that enable agencies to manage road systems and
inform travelers ahead of and during adverse weather conditions.
Twenty-two percent of all vehicle crashes in the past decade
were weather-related. On average, these crashes resulted in about 6,000 deaths
and 445,000 injuries a year. About 25 percent of nonrecurring traffic delays
are due to adverse weather, and weather-related delays add about $3.4 billion a
year to freight costs.
In EDC round four (EDC-4), the Federal Highway
Administration is encouraging deployment of two road weather management solutions:
Pathfinder is a collaborative process involving the National
Weather Service, transportation departments, and private sector weather service
providers to disseminate clear, consistent road weather information.
Integrating mobile observations involves collecting weather and road condition data with fleet vehicles to improve transportation system management during adverse weather.
View an EDC-4 webinar on weather-savvy roads.
Contact Paul Pisano of the FHWA Office of Operations or Ray Murphy of the FHWA Resource Center for information and technical assistance.
Minnesota Demonstrates Process for Bridge Project
Using the construction manager/general contractor
project delivery method enabled the Minnesota Department of Transportation to
test a process it plans to use on the Smith Avenue High Bridge redecking
project in St. Paul. A feature of the tied-arch bridge over the Mississippi
River is post-tensioning tendon ties. The project team created a full-size model
of one of the bundled tendons to test and validate the detensioning process to
be used in the redecking and tendon bundle replacement. At a February 17
demonstration, the team completed a test of the process on the model,
successfully showing how the tendon bundles can be detensioned safely.
Missouri Bridges Project Recognized for Engineering
Excellence
A Missouri Department of Transportation design-build project won a
2017 Grand Award from the American
Council of Engineering Companies of Missouri. The Columbia I-70 Bridges project
involved replacing six bridges with five new bridges. The project team used accelerated bridge construction
techniques to build three of the bridges near I-70 before using slide-in bridge construction
to install the structures in their permanent positions during weekend lane
closures.
Washington Floating Bridge Wins Design-Build Award
The Washington State Department of Transportation’s State Route 520 floating bridge and
landings project won the 2016 Excellence in Design Engineering Award
from the Design-Build Institute of America. The project to design and build the
world’s longest floating bridge is expected to be completed this year. The structure
between Seattle and Medina provides a safer, more reliable link between the two
economic hubs on either side of Lake Washington.
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