Desiard Street deconstructed

Monroe street widening project is resequenced midstream

By James Gordon

Though long overdue and highly anticipated, a road-widening project in Monroe, La. had to be resquenced in the middle of construction.

Timing the tasks according to their most suitable seasons and redrawing the original engineering plans due to unaccounted underground utility lines caused the project managers to reconfigure the prescribed construction sequence.

Spokesmen for general contractor Merrick Construction Co. of Cottonport, La., said the $13.5 million job that began in May has an expected completion date in late October.

The project focuses on a 1.1-mi. section of U.S. Highway 80, or Desiard Street, that runs along the south side of the University of Louisiana at Monroe's campus. The roadway is being expanded from four to five lanes between its three-way intersection with Gilbert Street at the east end and its five-way intersection with Louisville Avenue (or U.S. Highway 165), Powell Avenue and Sterlington Road on the west end.

The project was let for bid in December 2004 and Cain Merrick, vice president and part owner of Merrick Construction, said the contract it ultimately won was especially large for his 60-year-old company.

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"Normally, when we do street-widening projects like this, it is in the $4 million to $5 million range," Merrick said.

Along with the fat contract came the two perennial difficulties of tackling an urban street project of this magnitude: underground utility lines and traffic management.

Merrick said the project was divided into two sequences. The first to be completed was the widening of the roadway east of Desiard Street's intersection with University Avenue, which cuts through nearly at the halfway point of the project. The second sequence required tearing out the existing roadway west of University Avenue., laying 9 in. of class 2 base course and laying 9 in. of concrete on top of that.

Also in the second sequence, a dangerous five-way intersection at the west end of the project was to be reconfigured into a four-way intersection, allowing Desiard Street to enter Louisville Avenue at a 90-degree angle. Powell Avenue and Sterlington Road were to be redirected to merge at only right turns at the intersection.

The Desiard Street project also includes replacing the water and sewer lines in the road as a part of a larger rehabilitation of the water distribution system and sanitary sewer system in the surrounding area.

Merrick subcontracted the water and sewer line work to JABAR Corp. of Calhoun, La., which was to work ahead of the road construction and install new water lines and meters on the side of the road, where they would not be in the way of the road construction. JABAR also had to replace the original clay sewer lines with more durable polyethylene pipes.

But instead of working according to DOTD's original plans, Merrick ended up working backward, doing sequence two before completing sequence one.

John Eason, the DOTD project engineer who drew up the original plans for the Desiard Street project, said that the switch of the sequences was necessary because of a BellSouth fiber-optic line that was not relocated before the project began and couldn't be moved until a work order was issued.

That one line significantly delayed construction.

"This is an urban project," Eason said. "And as with all urban projects, when you scratch the ground, everything in the world is under there." There were also several other fiber-optic lines that had to be avoided and 10 fuel tanks that had to be relocated away from the path of the new water lines.

"There is really not a lot of right-of-way to this job," Merrick said. "There have been real tight parameters."

With the approval of DOTD district construction supervisor Marshall Hill, Merrick Construction was allowed to jump ahead to other steps of the project. Hill also took over for Eason as project engineer for several months and later reassigned Eason back to the project.

The new sequence allowed Merrick Construction to do the toughest part of the job first: tearing out and reconstructing the road west of University Avenue. And the company was able to work through the winter months because the weather permited the pouring of concrete. The sequence also allowed them to avoid higher traffic volumes while finishing the job.

"In the summer months, we are working sequence one from University Avenue to the end of the job because it will go a lot smoother," Merrick said. "The University of Louisiana at Monroe is out of school for the summer, and there is less traffic on that section."

While the construction did create a bottleneck, the traffic flow was never stopped, said Ted Moulard, a project manager for Merrick.

"We kept two lanes of traffic open all of the way," he added.

Now, Desiard has five lanes of traffic open from the new four-way intersection to the intersection with University Avenue. All of the asphalt has been laid, but Merrick Construction still needs to apply the wearing course. Then the job will be left to JABAR to re-head the manholes and bring the project to its completion.