PROCESS INSIGHTS: HOW TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
WAS HANDLED ON TWO WISCONSIN PROJECTS
Road resurfacing: US Highway 51
and US Highways 12/18, Madison,
Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Department
of Transportation (WisDOT) has
scheduled work to begin on US
Highways 12/18 and 51 in Madison
in July. Ayres Associates is working
with James Romanowski of
WisDOT’s Southwest Region on the
transportation management plan
(TMP) for the project.
“Our first meeting to consider
appropriate strategies for managing
traffic flow was in 2015,” Romanowski
said, “at least two years prior to
construction.”
The corridor is a major route
for commuters and is lined with
businesses relying on the highways
to bring customers to their doors
– more than 54,000 vehicles each
weekday. The project involves
repairing the most deteriorated
pavement areas. The approach usually
would be to close one lane of traffic
to allow construction and create
new, temporary, narrower lanes to
maintain the same number of traffic
lanes in both directions while the
work goes on. That’s expensive.
Recognizing that traffic counts
in this project area are considerably
higher during the week, Ayres
Associates came up with a creative
way of reducing effects on motorists.
“Instead of temporary widening to
keep lanes and all traffic movements
at the heavily used interchange open
continuously, we developed a concept
for multiple weekend ‘blitzes,’ ” said
Bill Roth, an Ayres Associates senior
transportation engineer working
on the project. “During a given
weekend, this essentially allows for
the closure of some of the lanes and
of the full closure of some of the
traffic movements at interchange
ramps or the nearby East Broadway
intersection, while other lanes or
movements are kept open. It’s a
novel approach that avoids the extra
time and cost of first constructing
temporary widening, then shifting
traffic, all for fairly minor repairs.”
Other methods for reducing
effects on the traveling public during
the Madison project include shifting
work to nights when possible, using
changeable message signs to notify
motorists of changes or conditions,
and encouraging motorists to use
alternate routes when possible.
Romanowski predicted that at least
20 percent of motorists will select
an alternate route on the Madison
project to avoid the construction
zone, where on a more remote
interstate project only 3 to 4 percent
of motorists find a way to exit the
interstate and bypass construction, he
said.
“The work will result in a
safer and better road to drive on,”
Romanowski said. “That’s the goal.
We just have to put up with some
inconvenience to get there.”
Corridor improvements: Interstate
41, eastern Wisconsin
By the end of a large project, a
TMP and all its revisions and additions
can be a lengthy, complicated set of
documents. Consider the 31-mile-long
corridor of improvements to what
is now Interstate 41 on Wisconsin’s
eastern side. Ayres Associates is part
of the massive team responsible for
the project from planning through
completion.
TRENDS
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