Contractor Beats Interchange Rehab Deadline by a Year

E.V. Williams uses GPS grading control

It sounds simple enough… widen a couple of roads and clean up an interchange.

In the case of the I-64 / Battlefield Boulevard Project in Chesapeake, Virginia, the challenge and work is far from simple. Where the two roads meet, the heavy traffic on the interstate flows between Suffolk and Virginia Beach and the cross-over road is a busy local artery. The aerial view of the new interchange looks like a Celtic cross with circle-loop on-ramps and exits. It's no surprise that the project has garnered notice and awards for its elegant engineering.

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) commissioned the project and hired the construction-consulting firm McDonough Bolyard Peck (MBP), Fairfax, Va., to manage it.

"The VDOT project's goal is improve traffic and reduce congestion," states Kyle Myers, GPS manager, with E.V. Williams, Norfolk, Va. "We're widening a two-mile stretch of I-64 from six to 10 lanes total (four single occupancy vehicle lanes and a HOV each direction), widening of the Battlefield Boulevard bridge from one to three lanes in each direction, adding five newly constructed bridges, and adding new braided exit ramps to separate merging traffic from oncoming traffic."

Since 1941, E.V. Williams has been engaged in site development and highway construction. The company is the prime contractor responsible for this massive I-64 / Battlefield project. "We completed all the underground utilities, did all the dirt work, brought in all of the stone, and managed the bridge-building and concrete sub-contractors," Myers says. "In addition, we also had a $2 million change order, which was to add a barrier wall on the westbound side of I-64 to separate the collector/distributor lanes from the mainline traffic flow to reduce congestion."

With an approximately 24-worker crew and six to seven subcontractors working on the job at any time, E.V. Williams was able to complete the three-year project, including the additional change-order, in two and a half years. That's not a copy error; E.V. Williams was able to complete the project a half year ahead of schedule

How so? "A key to the efficient production and coordination of this project, was our ability to perform dirt work quickly, accurately, and complete tasks in between the work our subcontractors needed to do," states Myers. "Our use of GPS grade control technology was major."

Myers continues, "It saved us – it's unbelievable how much – how much time and money it saves you when you go from at least a four-man crew, an operator, and two workers pulling the string, and one checking grade, to one guy on a machine, no stakes. It's just uncanny the amount of money that can be saved.

"Plus, the GPS system allows us to work at all hours if needed. We were able to construct one area of our project, the eastbound extension, completely at night, using only a GPS grader. You couldn't have shot grades in the dark. It just made life extremely easy. Here's another example: We had one of the on-ramp loops completed from virgin ground all the way to the point of blue-top stakes. There was one dozer operator. We backed the dump trucks up to him, he filled it, and he pushed-in the slopes all the way out until he boxed-in for sub-grade. And then, we had our surveyor—just one guy—come in. You can see how much time, personnel, and money it saves."

E.V. Williams acquired Trimble® GCS900 Grade Control Systems for its motor grader and several dozers, a few months before the I-64 / Battlefield Boulevard Project began. And Myers who had joined E.V. Williams less than a year into the start-up of the project was instrumental in helping the company take full advantage of the technology's capabilities. Myers had more than five years experience working with Trimble systems. All of the Trimble-equipped machines were used on the project.

"Perhaps the biggest challenge we faced was the location of our base station since the project was roughly two miles long, and we were trying to get our radio signals through high-tension power lines in order to reach the entire project," Myers says. "We ended-up erecting a 90-foot tower topped with a high-gain antenna in the lay-down yard about a mile way." The base station was a Trimble® SPS850 Modular GPS Receiver.

E.V. Williams used a series of repeaters to reach the project site and Myers took it a step further and put the base station on the Internet so that the company could use it on a re-broadcast basis for at least four other projects during the life of the I-64 / Battlefield Boulevard Project.

To make sure the project would go well from the start, E.V. Williams, along with its Trimble dealer, Spectra Integrated Systems Inc., had arranged an initial meeting before the project commenced. "This important pre-construction meeting occurred before I joined the company," Myers states. "Our Trimble dealer could see a potential train wreck ahead if we didn't get everyone on the same page. The surveyor was using a different system from Trimble and the bridge builder had a third system. So, as the principle contractor we pulled everyone together, including VDOT, and established how we we're handling the base station, calibrations, site models and the control points. Everyone agreed to it, and everybody matched."

In looking at the completed project, Myers recounts that everyone who worked on the I-64 / Battlefield Boulevard Project is proud of the fact that they were able to keep traffic flowing throughout the whole project and: "The rideability is unmatched. When you come down the highway and hit that new section, it's completely silent in your vehicle; there's hardly any bumps. The sub-base is dead on. With the Trimble GPS systems, our average error on each break-point and edge of pavement for four miles of roadway (two miles each way), times five lanes wide, was a quarter inch."

Clearly, E.V. Williams was able to take a complicated interchange reconstruction and widening project and make it almost seem simple. "Using Trimble technology made it easier to complete a complex project about a year ahead of schedule," states Myers.