Brookhaven's Pavement Restoration Program

 

Brookhaven’s Pavement Restoration Program Details Explained

If you’ve lived in DeKalb County for a long period of time, you’ll find that the City’s Paving projects may be somewhat more involved and take a significantly longer time to complete than you may be used to.  At the most, you may have seen the County perform steps listed for Milling & Overlay below.  More likely, the milling was skipped, and the County prepared the road by cleaning them and then overlayed a layer of pavement equal in many ways to the 2nd layer of pavement listed below.

 

Full Depth Reclamation (FDR):

General Steps to Complete the FDR Process:

(The times listed beside each step are rule-of-thumb times to complete.  Various factors, some of which are listed below the summaries, can affect the schedule)
 

  1. UTILITY ADJUSTMENTS:  DeKalb Department of Watershed Management (DWM) inspects depth of the water line and the depth of water service lines to homes through potholing (digging small pits over the water lines to determine how deep they are).
    1. If the service lines are too shallow and will likely be damaged by the steps below, they will lower those water services. (this can take several days or weeks to complete, dependent upon the number of lines that need to be moved.  Then they must restore the right-of-way.)
    2. If the water main is too shallow and will likely be damaged by the steps below, they will lower the water main.  (This is a big project and can take several months to design, obtain a contractor, and execute the work)
    3. If the water main is too old, made of an obsolete material, or has a history of frequent breaks, they may choose to replace the entire water main and services. (This is a big project and can take several months to design, obtain a contractor, and execute the work)
  2. MILLING:
    1. Mill (scrape / grind off) a few inches of existing pavement (1-2 days to complete)
    2. If traffic humps are present, they are removed. (done at time of milling)
  3. PULVERIZING / MIXING:
    1. Loosen, break apart, and mix (similar to tilling) the remaining road materials (pavement and road foundation) to about a foot below existing curb’s gutter.
      (2-3 days, dependent upon length of street)

This is the “Full Depth” part of the process. 

  1. Some of the existing mixed pavement and road foundation materials are left in place to help re-build the road’s foundation (road base). 

This is the “Reclamation” part.

  1. Remove the excess loosened / tilled materials not needed for the reclamation work. (Usually, the same day as pulverizing the old materials)
  1. MIXING:  Mix Portland cement (grey powder material) with the reclaimed material and compact with roller to form a compacted road base. (1-2 days)
  2. CURING:  Allow the mixed materials to cure (harden and strengthen) (7 days to 10 days) 
  3. PROOFING:  Proof-roll the cured road base.  (Run heavy loads over the road base across its width and length to verify successful preparation of the road base.) (1 day)
  4. BINDER COURSE: Place and roll / compact a first layer of asphalt for strength (larger rocks are in the mix) (1-2 days)
  5. CURB RAISING:  If curbs need to be raised, this is done between these steps (3-4 days)
  6. FRICTION COURSE:  Place and roll / compact the second layer of asphalt to add strength and to promote a smoother surface (1-2 days)
  7. TRAFFIC HUMPS:  If traffic humps were present, they are re-installed. (4-5 days)
  8. STRIPING:  If there was road striping present, it should be re-painted in 10-30 days. The longer period helps the striping last longer. (done in 1 day, 10-30 days from paving.)

 

Mill and Overlay (M&O):

  1. MILLING:
    1. Mill (scrape / grind off) a few inches of existing pavement (1-2 days to complete)
    2. If traffic humps are present, they are removed. (done at time of milling)
  2. BINDER COURSE:  Place and roll / compact a first layer of asphalt for strength (larger rocks are in the mix) (1-2 days)
  3. CURB RAISING:  If curbs need to be raised, this is done between these steps (3-4 days)
  4. FRICTION COURSE: Place and roll / compact the second layer of asphalt to add strength and to promote a smoother surface (1-2 days)
  5. TRAFFIC HUMPS:  If traffic humps were present, they are re-installed. (4-5 days)
  6. STRIPING:  If there was road striping present, it should be re-painted in 10-30 days. The longer period helps the striping last longer. (done in 1 day, 10-30 days from paving.)

Main Factors Affecting the Paving Schedule

There are critical paths, the tasks that must be completed before another can start, that existing in all projects.  When there are a variety of independent elements, each with their own critical path, a disruption to one can cause unanticipated and frustrating schedule delays throughout the project.  Here is list of a few, but not all, of the factors that can affect the paving schedule.

  1. Weather.  Paving during the winter months can be challenging.
    1. Asphalt has minimum air and surface temperatures that it can be applied.  Oftentimes, if temperatures below those thresholds are forecast, the asphalt mills don’t even operate.
    2. Rain / Snow
  2. Holidays / Sickness
  3. DWM’s Schedule for Water Line / Service Line Adjustments. (these steps are generalized.  Actual steps and their order may be somewhat different)
    1. The County’s schedule is completely independent of the City’s.  We have no control.  We can provide them with our paving schedule, and they’ll try to match it up with their Contractor’s work schedule.  (All of this type of work is done by County Contractors)
    2. Often, there is a lag period between the County providing Notice to Proceed and getting crews out to pothole (hand digging test pits to determine the depth of the water line).
    3. Typically, they prefer to pothole first, so they may pothole the whole road before they start lowering water lines.
    4. Materials are typically ordered at the end of the inspections.  There can be a period of time between ordering the materials and the start of work.
    5. The installation crews may be on another job when the materials come in, and the project waits until they are free.
    6. If a Water Main must be replaced the steps include:
      1. Survey to located existing improvements, other utilities and the alignment of the water main
      2. Design. 
        1. Usually, the existing water main stays in service to the end and once the new line is in service, the old one is abandoned in place.
        2. A clear alignment, one that avoids other utilities must be found by the engineering team before design can be completed.
      3. Internal design review
      4. Request for Quotes.  DWM typically has contractors pre-selected, but they still have to negotiate the Scope of Work and Price
      5. Notice to Proceed.
      6. Materials ordering and delivery (materials won’t be obtained until the Contractor has a signed agreement with the County)
      7. If other utilities have to be adjusted, a similar process will take place, but it will initially lag behind the water main project.  Once complete, the DWM Contractor can get to work.
      8. Construction.
        1. Laying the water main
        2. Drilling taps (connect) for existing water services and capping above the ground
        3. Installation of new water valves to control the flow of water between the existing and the old water main
        4. Inspections by County inspectors (2-3 times a week.  If an inspection fails, the issue must be corrected before the Contractor can proceed)
        5. Pressure testing
        6. Sanitizing the line
        7. Tie-ins to existing water meters
        8. Switching water service to the new water main
        9. Surface restoration
        10. Final Inspection and Closeout
        11. Handover of project area ready for use by City
  4. Paving Contractor
    1. Crew availability (The contractor may have specialty crews that focus on one or more areas of the process)
      1. The right crew is not typically sitting on the sideline waiting for the Brookhaven project to be ready to start; they are working another project
      2. This creates a lag between this first date of site availability and the availability of the paving crew as they finish the current job.
      3. Different crews for different jobs (some crews may perform multiple tasks, while some tasks are staffed by dedicated crews)
        1. Milling
        2. Pulverizing and mixing
        3. Compacting / rolling
        4. Laying asphalt
        5. Curb raising
        6. Traffic hump installation
        7. Cleaning / sweeping
        8. Striping
      4. In addition to the above, the project relies on:
        1. Truck / delivery drivers
          1. Delivery of the equipment to the site
          2. Delivery of materials to the site.
            1. Portland cement (we’ve had significant supply issues this year)
            2. Asphalt is an on-demand material.  When it’s time to pave, all of the materials must be lined up and all of the truck drivers must be scheduled.
          3. Removal of waste materials (milled asphalt, mixed waste materials (mixture of pulverized asphalt and base material, unsuitable soils, etc.)
          4. Delivery of suitable materials.  If unsuitable materials are removed, they must be replaced before moving forward.
  5. Quality Control
    1. Materials testing is done by a third party.  They must be available to witness work or sample / test materials
    2. Daily inspections
    3. If issues discovered, momentum can be lost
      1. Removal of unacceptable / defective work / materials
      2. Reinstallation of work removed. 
      3. Crew availability can become a factor again
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