Resurfacing I-40 in Burke could start in June

By: Steve Welker | Morganton News Herald
Published: March 25, 2009

Morganton, NC --

Highway planners are clearing the way for a 25-mile-long, $14- to $16-million resurfacing project to start in June on Interstate 40 in Burke County.
The Greater Hickory Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Unifour Rural Planning Organization will have a joint meeting today in Hickory where the groups formally will amend the N.C. Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program to put projects I-0801 and I-0910 on a fast track.
Both projects involve resurfacing the interstate. The first project covers Exit 94 to Exit 106 (Bethel Road); the second, Exit 106 to Exit 119.
The projects will be bid together. Contracts could be let in May.
"It would be our hope to get them started in June," said Rick Tipton, N.C. Department of Transportation Division 13 construction engineer.
John Marshall, transportation manager for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, said it's too early to say where the contractor will begin work. That decision will be negotiated with NCDOT.
Both Marshall and Tipton believe the entire job could take up to a year.
"That's a large section of highway," Marshall said. "It depends on weather."
Tipton said work generally stops from December through March, when cooler temperatures affect the asphalt's bond to the underlying surface, but unusual weather could add delays.
And that's why Tipton hopes the project can get under way as soon as possible — so the contractor can do much of the work this summer and through autumn.
Up until just a few weeks ago, neither project had a starting date. DOT's Transportation Improvement Program anticipated the need for resurfacing I-40 in Burke County at some time in the future, but no funding source had been identified.
The funding situation changed abruptly when Congress approved the federal stimulus program with money for infrastructure projects.
Today's action in Hickory formally moves the the I-40 projects to current, active and funded status.
"It's not pushing anything back," Marshall noted.
"It's a great opportunity to extend the life of the highway," Tipton said.
Burke County has one of the oldest I-40 sections in North Carolina. I-40 itself was one of the original four interstates approved for the state in 1956. Work on the 34.3-mile section of freeway through Burke and Catawba counties started in 1959.
Commuters and some shoppers easily will recall traffic tie-ups during the resurfacing project on a newer part of I-40 west of Hickory last summer.
Tipton said the contract in Burke County will call for a thinner layer of asphalt, similar to what was put down early in this decade.
That surface "is starting to show some age and distress, but overall it's held up very well," he said.
Depending on who wins the contract and how the contractor approaches the job, Tipton said the work could involve a crew as small as 10 to 15 people or as large as 40 to 50. He said there are a number of contractors in the area, such as APAC Carolinas in Hickory and Maymead Materials in Marion, who might bid for the job.
Tipton said whoever wins the job will face a completion deadline that's still to be set.
"I hope we would be finishing up with this work by June," he said.
That would clear the way for the next improvement project in Burke County: reconstruction of the I-40 and NC 18 exit in Morganton.
The bid-letting for that job is scheduled for May 2010.
"The Exit 105 work typically wouldn't start until July," Tipton said, so there will be a little leeway to adjust that project's schedules so it doesn't overlap the resurfacing.
Nine months later, in February 2011, NCDOT plans to let bids for reconstruction of Exit 104 at Enola Road.

Resurfacing I-40 in Burke could start in June

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