What to expect when you’re expecting road construction

A common question on KDOT’s social media pages is “When are you going to fix that road?” There are steps that take place before a highway construction project begins.  

One of the first steps is the appearance of neon orange or white numbers spray painted on the shoulder or on the road if there is no shoulder. 

One of the first signs of a project are painted numbers on the side of the road. 

In addition, stakes will also be placed on the roadside in the grass or brush.  The numbers and the stakes are references used to measure quantities of materials that are used during the project. This also allows the contractor and KDOT to track the amount of material used per 100 feet of roadway.

Stakes are also added as reference points in the grass or brush. 

KDOT’s local maintenance crews also play a large part in preparing for a project.  They are responsible for mowing and weed eating the work zone prior to a project.  This increases visibility for motorists and crews and helps reduce the fire hazard during a project. KDOT’s local crews will also repair shoulders and patch potholes if the number of traffic lanes is being reduced to one lane during a project. Local crews will also install passing and no-passing signs in the construction area as highway markings may be removed during construction.

Crews construct no-passing signs because highway markings may be removed during construction.

At some point, a site will be cleared and leveled, and piles of aggregate will be moved near the work zone.  Aggregate may include sand, rock or other material as needed.  Approximately one to two weeks before the project begins, a mobile plant which produces concrete or asphalt, will be moved into the site and set up. 

For some projects, the contractor will create a temporary plant site to haul and store aggregate and set up equipment to produce asphalt for the project using a mobile plant. 

Finally, work zone signs and traffic control devices will be placed along the side of the road in the days before the project begins.  This gives motorists time to prepare for changes in traffic flow before the project begins and is a sure sign that construction is just around the corner.

Always know before you go by visiting kandrive.org for the most up to date highway construction projects and detours. Remember to ditch the distractions, slow down and obey work zone warning signs.

Rain, rain go away: Highways in Kansas impacted by flooding

“Rain, rain go away, come again another day,” may be the tune that Kansans hum to themselves as they look at the weather forecast this week.  Parts of the Sunflower State haven’t seen the sun for what seems like days.

Flood waters cover K-4 in Saline County.

With all that rain comes the added risk of flooded roads and highways, and many have experienced this reality already. Today several highways in Kansas, including I-35 south of Wichita are closed.

Driving across flooded roads can be dangerous and there are many reasons for that. Check out this photo from last year when flooded waters washed parts of U.S. 24 away leaving a giant hole. Driving over that could have resulted in tragedy.

Last year flood waters damaged U.S. 24 in Graham County.

Just six inches of water can cause damage to your vehicle? According to SmartDriving.co.uk, water at this level can be sucked into your exhaust system and cause  serious issues for your vehicle.

Trees branches rest on K-98 in Meade County after powerful rushing waters carried them into the roadway. 

Six inches of water can cause your vehicle to lose traction, and 12 inches of water is enough to turn your vehicle in a boat, which it was never designed to be. Water can damage your engine and leave you with an expensive repair bill, or force you to buy a new vehicle.

The best way to stay safe during flood events is to be prepared. Watch the forecast ahead of time to make sure you won’t be encountering severe weather or torrential rainfall. Of course, flash floods can happen without warning. If you encounter a covered roadway, turn around, don’t drown. Never try to drive through it, it could result in the loss of your vehicle or even your life.

Earlier this year, flood waters caused flooding in northeast Kansas near White Cloud. 

For updated road conditions, check the construction tab on www.kandrive.org and pay attention to the weather forecast! More rain is expected today. 

Concrete stitching helps preserve the driving surface

By Priscilla Peterson,
Public Affairs Manager, Southeast Kansas 

KDOT maintenance crews from Independence and Altoona recently took advantage of some mild winter days to perform a preservation activity called concrete stitching on sections of U.S. 400 in Montgomery County. 

The process is used to pin cracks in the driving pavement back together, preventing elevation and separation issues in concrete slabs.

To stitch the pavement, first a crew member measures the crack and paints locations that will be drilled at an angle to the crack. The painted spots are then drilled and cleaned.

Steel pins are placed alongside each drilled location, and epoxy is applied to each hole before the rebar pin is inserted.

Each pin is placed at a 35-degree angle to the crack and hammered into the hole.

Pin securely placed, more epoxy is applied and the hole is smoothed over.

The stitched section is now ready for crack sealing, as shown in a previously stitched and sealed location next to the work zone. And now, on to the next section! 

Digging deeper: Road condition health requires more in-depth analysis

The health of our road conditions goes deeper than how smooth the surface is.

KDOT engineering technician Bill Vacura operates the core drill on a section of U.S. 283 in southern Norton County.

Engineering technicians from the Norton district materials lab took advantage of some nice February days to obtain several core samples from U.S. 283 and K-9 in northwest Kansas.

Vacura (left) and Mark Weiser, engineering technician specialist,
 extract the core sample from the roadway.

While it’s easy to see how conditions are on top of the road, that driving surface is just the tip of the iceberg, with many more layers underneath. Core samples allow KDOT to take a deeper look below the surface to see how the various layers of pavement are performing.

Vacura (left) and Mark Weiser, engineering technician specialist, extract the core sample from the roadway.

Technicians utilize a specialized core drill to obtain the samples. The drill acts much like a hole saw and is water-cooled to keep the bit from overheating. Once the technicians have drilled to the desired depth, the core is retrieved, labeled with the date and location, and sent back to the lab for analysis. Measurements are also taken of both the hole and core, then the hole is filled and patched with asphalt.

Weiser and Vacura patch the hole left behind
by the core drill. 

Back at the lab, technicians photograph the sample and conduct a visual assessment on the conditions of the different layers. They also note if the core was extracted as a whole or if it was in separate pieces. This information helps KDOT engineers determine what kind of action may be needed on the road and how deep that work needs to take place.

Kansas highways win national awards

 This award winning section of  U.S. 160 extends from the U.S. 160/U.S. 54 junction in Meade County to the U.S. 160/U.S. 283 junction in Clark county

Kansas highways continue to win national recognition. APAC Shears of Hutchinson has 

received three awards from the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) for projects in Kansas.

The APAC Hays Branch was awarded the Larry H. Lemon Quality in Construction Award for a mill and overlay project on U.S. 160 that extends from the U.S. 160/U.S. 54 junction in Meade County to the U.S. 160/U.S. 283 junction in Clark county. The award recognizes asphalt pavements that use less than 50,000 tons of asphalt in the project.

The $1.4 million project was 17 miles in length and completed in June.

“We are proud of the great work our contractors do for the state of Kansas,” said Catherine Patrick, State Transportation Engineer for the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT).

Award-winning section of U.S. 50 in Harvey County

The APAC Heavy Highway Branch of Hutchinson received two awards - one for U.S. 50 in Harvey County in the category of projects with 50,000 tons or less asphalt, and one for U.S. 69 in Linn County in the category of projects of 50,000 tons or more asphalt.

“A Kansas asphalt contractor achieving this award is testimony of the high-quality work performed by our producer members,” said Dan Scherschligt, Executive Director of the Kansas Asphalt Pavement Association.

An in-progress photo of U.S. 69 in Linn County, which won an award from the National Asphalt Pavement Association. 

According to APAC Shears, the pavement went through a variety of tests and were compared for volumetric quality and hitting targets for air voids, density and gradation and measurements of quality pavements.    

KDOT’s Director of Operations Larry Thompson said that KDOT and the state of Kansas benefit from contractors who are able to provide quality roads.

KDOT rides along with the Kansas Highway Patrol

KDOT took a ride with Master Trooper Neil Stanley on April 20 to teach others
about the importance of driving sober and to learn what its like to be a trooper. 

There is a popular saying that encourages others to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, so you can understand what their world is like.  Last Friday, we decided to trade in shoes for a Kansas Highway Patrol vehicle when we got a chance to experience a day in the life of a Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper with Master Trooper Neil Stanley. 

Our goal was to ride along at the beginning of the drugged driving enforcement and tweet about our experiences as they happened. One of the biggest messages that Stanley hopes people will understand is impaired driving isn’t just limited to alcohol. He said if there is any substance being used that can impair your driving, it is something that could result in an arrest and have a license revoked.

While on the ride, Stanley explained how KHP officers rely on both their observation skills and radar technology to determine how fast drivers are going.  While a few of the stops were to enforce the speed limit, there were several instances where Stanley was able help stranded and lost drivers.

As we rode along, it was obvious that there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to encouraging drivers to slow down and move over when emergency vehicles and highway crews are on the side of the road.

Graphic of a KHP vehicle crash last year.  Give them room. 

During a stop where Stanley was assisting a person towing a boat, vehicles whizzed by at high speeds. Stanley said he wants the public to understand that when you are going that fast you have less time to react if something unexpected happens. He gave an example of a highway worker who trips into the road. If someone is going faster than the speed limit, people can get hurt.  

While we didn’t encounter any drugged driving during our short ride, we had the opportunity to see and feel what it is like sitting in the front seat of a patrol vehicle. The life of law enforcement officers, emergency responders or highway workers can be challenging. They need to be ready for the unexpected at any moment.

The next time you are out on the road and you see a Highway Patrol Trooper don’t overreact, just drive normally, slow down and give them room to work. And if you ever get the chance, be sure to thank them for what they do. Just like highway workers, their job can be dangerous and at the end of the day they also want to see their loved ones.

KDOT and the KHP will ride together again next month, stay tuned on our twitter page: www.twitter.com/KDOTHQ

Musical highways

When we hear that motorists who use our highways obey the speed limit, it is music to our ears. But did you know that there are actually some locations around the world that if you obey the speed limit, the roads will literally sing? 

Two of those locations exist right here in the United States. The first one was built in 2014 on Route 66 in New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Tijeras. 

According to an article from the Smithsonian Magazine, the New Mexico Department of Transportation created this to encourage drivers to slow down and bring a little excitement to the monotonous highway.  The music is created by rumble strips in the road that are perfectly spaced far enough apart that when a car rolls over them at just the ride speed, vibrations are created and the music is produced. Music notes are essentially vibrations in the air. The closer the grooves are, the faster the vibrations and the higher the note. 

 Vehicles must drive 45 MPH, or the music can't be heard. The song that drivers can hear  is "America the Beautiful." Check out the video:

The next location where you can hear music by following the speed limit is just outside Lancaster, Calif.  If you slow down to 55 MPH, you can hear "William Tell's Overture."

Japan has several musical roads, check out this one near Mt. Fuji.

What song would you like to hear in Kansas? 

Who designs the highways?

When KDOT undertakes any construction project, there’s always a team that leads that project, taking it from a study, through the coordination and design, to handing it off to the construction team to break ground. And every team has a leader responsible for implementing the project and coordinating all aspects. For the Lewis and Clark Viaduct, one of those key people is Debbie Tanking, a 13-year Road Design Engineer with KDOT and Project Manager for the I-70 westbound bridge replacement. 

The Lewis and Clark Viaduct project overhead map of alternative routes during the construction project.

“It’s a team effort,” Tanking said. “I worked with a lot of great people on this project.” Tanking’s team has been working on the Lewis and Clark Viaduct project since its inception in 2012, and it’s the biggest she’s seen in terms of traffic impact and the long-term options it delivers.

“We all knew this was going to be huge,” she said. “The coordination between all the stakeholders was one of the biggest challenges we faced as we developed proposed concepts.” 

A concept design of the partial reconstruction of the Lewis and Clark Viaduct I-70 WB bridge.

As a Road Design Engineer, it’s Tanking’s responsibility to understand how humans, vehicles and the roadway interact with each other. “We look at the geometry of the road to check factors such as curves, grades, sight distances and clearances so they are appropriate for the speeds, volume and uses the road is designed for.” Tanking said she takes pride in being part of a team whose work benefits Kansas long term.

“The great thing about being part of the KDOT team is that we all work here because we want to help make infrastructure work better for Kansas,” Tanking said. “All of us at KDOT have families that use our state’s roads and bridges. It’s one reason we try so hard to do the right thing.” 

No project, no matter how big or small, happens without a team of experts who work closely together and with all the stakeholders to plan, design and construct the roads and bridges. The $64 million bridge replacement addresses not only the projected expense of repairs that would have been needed to maintain the bridge long term if it had not been replaced, but also addresses the need for a future route of travel as downtown Kansas City continues to grow. It also addresses the commercial traffic, airport traffic and even the railway that passes under the bridge.

The Lewis and Clark Viaduct WB I-70 lanes closed last week for the duration of the project.

“The design process and construction can be difficult to work through but when things are back to normal and the traveling public appreciates the improvements, that’s the best feeling.”

Litter bugs beware! KDOT crews exterminate trash along highways

It’s amazing what some people will throw away, especially out of vehicle windows while driving more than 65 miles an hour along Kansas highways.

KDOT crews across the state actually take the time to clean up the messes that litter bugs leave behind. KDOT addresses these messy situations to improve safety for the traveling public.

On average KDOT crews can pick up 2-4 tons worth of trash each week. An article posted on KDOT’s Northeast Kansas Facebook page explains that in the KC Metro area, crews pick up litter by hand as time allows.

“Many of these tasks, especially litter pick up, are never ending,” the article said. “Effort may be made one day to pick up litter and the next day it may look as if it was never addressed. KDOT does not take our responsibilities lightly in providing a safe and efficient transportation system.”

KDOT crews also still have to ensure that hazardous spills are cleaned up and it can require several agencies.

Wayne Nelson, Superintendent at the Pittsburg Area Office, said that last year a hospital waste disposal truck’s door fell open and about 20 big bags of medical waste were scattered along a five-mile area. KDOT, KDHE, Emergency Management, The Kansas Highway Patrol, the local sheriff and other agencies were all on the scene to clean up the mess.

“As Area Superintendent of Area Four, I refused to allow any agency on the list to leave the trash on our right of way for even one night,” Nelson said.  “There was a trailer court and residences all around the area, any dog could have taken the trash to a yard where kids were playing.”

Nelson said that on any given day, staff may find some dangerous items left along the state right-of-way.

“Drug dealers leave their hazardous waste for KDOT people to address, because if (these items) are found in a dumpster they may identify who is doing the dumping. Dangerous items requiring removal from state right of way may include needles, chemicals, fire hazards, and explosives."

Some areas in the state report that more drug paraphernalia is dumped on the side of the road after a drug lane check.

Hazardous waste aside, some KDOT crews find the strangest things along roadways. Unusual finds include money, laptops, cell phones, truck tires, guns, IDs, tools, knives and even entire motorcycles abandoned by their owners.

While KDOT crews do their best to clean up the litter, they cannot do it alone. Some areas in the state need your help to exterminate litter. KDOT’s ADOPT-A-Highway program is a great way to do your part to keep Kansas beautiful and take an active role in keeping your state clean!

Find more information about how you can get involved here!

And remember, litter belongs in a trashcan or recycle bin, not along roadsides.