Tree Likkle Birds

If you have been paying attention, you may have figured out that three major mistakes were made on this project (as well as the multitudes of small mistakes). The worst these was the first of these (and it’s sequel), although all three were tragic, at least to the longevity of the roadway.

Back in the day, shortly after the Koreans quit, we recommended that they be fired, sacked, let go,… made redundant. Instead, the Client’s Project Director opted to keep them on board.

So then, we were in a quandary. How do you build a job with a Contractor who does not want to work? In this case, the Client’s Project Director decided to split the project into vertically subcontracted portions, which resulted in a current and continuing blame game regarding completion dates and quality of the underlying works.
The worst mistake, however, was the decision by the Client’s Project Director to reduce the thickness of the pavement.

During the design process, the Company traversed the North Coast and ascertained the condition of the existing pavement. Using high technology methodologies like the “falling weight deflectometer” (where you drop a big hunk of something on the pavement and listen to the thump), and lower technology methodologies like “taking a good look”, combined with estimates as to projected traffic volumes over time, a design for the proposed pavement was developed.

In the more heavily traveled areas of this road, and in areas that would be reconstructed, the Company proposed a subgrade of well compacted marl, then 350 millimeters of select material, then 100 millimeters of crushed stone, then 150 millimeters of asphalt cement concrete. We reckoned (remember that we are an Midwestern Company, where reckoning is inbred) that this would provide for a twenty year functional lifespan, at which point the roadway could be milled and resurfaced and used for another twenty years.

For reasons unknown to me (although money in some form or another might have had something to do with it), the tender documents show the depth of the asphalt layer to be only 85 millimeters. Now, while each layer of the pavement structure adds to its strength, the asphalt layer adds more strength but with greater cost per unit depth. A good pavement design will balance the performance of the various layers with their varying costs to achieve the optimal roadway. In reducing the asphalt layer by 65 millimeters (43%), the projected life of the pavement was reduced by 75%, to only five years. Based upon the original Contract prices, this major loss saved less than 8% of the total Contract cost.

This was lunacy, and a lunacy soon to be repeated, for shortly after the decision was made to retender the works to the Nominated Subcontractors, the Client’s Project Director decided to make additional reductions to the depth of the asphalt layer, this time, down to 50 millimeters. The result is a reduction in serviceable pavement life to a mere two years, plus or minus. Based on the above, a cost savings of about 15% resulted in a 95% loss in pavement life.

Some savings, huh? In the States, the trend is to provide projected pavement lifespans of greater than twenty years. In fact, the most recent sales technique by the asphalt suppliers is that, with proper design and strategic maintenance, their new pavements can last about forever. Certainly, the savings in regular reconstruction costs from now until forever would more than offset a small increase in initial construction cost. But money has something to do with this decision as well.

The reduction in pavement thickness on this highway made the dailies headlines briefly, spurred by various rants from the head of one of the local Chambers of Commerce. The gist of these rants was that the pavement thickness would be reduced significantly. The ranter was too little informed to understand the drastic reduction in pavement life caused by this, and only surmised that strength would be reduced proportionally with the thickness of the asphalt surfacing. Furthermore, the Client never released the original report showing the 150 millimeter design (I keep the office copy of this report in a secret place), so the initial reduction is not widely distributed public knowledge.

This may be the most maddening aspect of this entire assignment. That no matter how we work to maintain quality materials and workmanship, our efforts are sabotaged.

And by the Client, no less.

Hank reminds me on occasion, “We are only installers.”

As such, our responsibility would end once we made recommendation to the Client that they were making another large mistake. After that, our job is to build the road as best as we can.

What accelerates the decline of the roadway even further is the lack of any sort of enforceable vehicle weight restrictions. Too often, I see Contractors haul trucks outfitted with “cheater boards” (wooden rails extended above the top of the dump body) and then filled to a point where the angle of repose of the hauled material defines the load limits. In this case, axle loads are probably twice what they should be, which causes considerably more than twice the damage to this now fragile pavement.

I used to bitch to the Contractors about this, basing my argument on the Contract clause that requires them to obey the law. I would accompany this with veiled threats of backcharging them for repairs based upon theoretical damage caused by their overloaded vehicles. Eventually, someone was kind enough to inform me that the load limit law has not been revised since the 1930’s, and that today’s dump truck, even when deadheading, weighs in excess of the legal limit.

Ah, well. I am reminded of yet another Wailer lyric, simply “don’ worry ‘bout a t’ing, cuz ev’ry likkle t’ing gonna be alright.” Read More......

Blockade

I was again reminded this morning why I should always be alert while behind the wheel. Barreling down the new asphalt, most of the way through my commute, spiraling through the only such curve on the project, fast approaching the bridge at Flint River, I came to see a line of stopped traffic not progressing as far as my corrected vision could discern. “Never take your hand off the shifter knob”, seemed a good topical mantra as I put the transmission through its paces.

Once done, I found myself at the ass end of that aforementioned line of cars, surveying the masses that had gathered just east of the bridge, wondering where the cops were, and asking myself, “who ran off the road this time?”

It is another weird thing about this place, the huge crowds that gather at every auto accident, fatal or no. I have seen crowds of less than a dozen in less traveled rural areas at the sight of a rollover, and I have seen crowds in the hundreds at fatalities along major sections of the road. Random citizens will stop to gasp. Taximen will stop to gawk. Minibuses will stop and disgorge their passengers to gape. School busses will stop, and all the little pickneys will pour out to gasp, gawk, and gape (trying to be so adult). And for them, this sure beats going to work or to school.

So what was it this time? I had for some time predicted that a speeding Lada would fail to slow as the spiral tightened to the left, and would be shaky as he was wrapped into the immediately reversing hard right, losing control and flying off of the embankment and into a very large guango tree which we tried to preserve in tact, but was instead well trimmed with the bucket of an excavator. The tree remained mostly adjacent to the shoulder, just past the clear zone.

As it turned out, the crowd, numbering over eight hundred on the ground by some media reports, was staging a demonstration to protest the condition of their local roads, located many kilometers inland from the North Coast Highway. In their defense, these local roads (their primary access to the highway) have been used by our various contractors for the last five years, poorly enduring thousands of cycles of trucks overloaded with crushed stone heading from quarry to project.

The cops were here as well, sort of directing traffic. Mostly, it seemed that they were there to keep things from getting ugly, just to keep the traffic sort of moving along. If the cops allow traffic to be slowed (as in – large snarling backup), the protestors might feel that they have succeeded. Of course, there is no money to fix their roads, especially in light of the islandwide damage caused to the road network by the incessant rains, which started the day after the last sere installment and have since to present to me a sunny day.

Driving through demonstrations over the condition of the road always makes me feel a bit uneasy. Not particularly unsafe, mind you, just uneasy. On those rare occasions where I am the specific (albeit temporary) target of mass protest, it is exceedingly difficult to explain how established engineering principles and the better established local bureaucracy do not always work towards the same end. Especially so when the target of the explanation is a score or two of people yelling at you. The dissatisfaction is evident in the protestors, and I am rarely in a position to solve their problems. This frustrates the engineer to no end, as unsolvable problems should not exist in a groovy world.

I am resigned then, that Jah-land is not on any groovy world as I envision it.

Question. Why put up with it?

The Company has offered me a position in the Twin Cities. If accepted, I would manage a staff of engineers and technicians in the development of State highway designs. Volume would be somewhere between a million or two in fees each year. They may add “Principle” to my business card. I would live in a cube farm next to the Interstate.

And it would snow.

Lots.

And when people blocked the roads, the Sheriff would waste no time in dragging them off to the big house. Truly, a refreshing change of pace.

The Company may also have a position for me in the Middle East. And by that, I do not mean Maryland. Some emir on the Persian Gulf bought a mess of F-somethings, and now he needs the requisite garage space. There is some fifteen million cubic meters of embankment (to start with) and an estimated construction cost of nearly four hundred million dollars for the whole shootin’ match (so to speak). I would have about the same technical duties as here, but on a much larger scale.

And when people blocked the roads, the leaders of the Jihad would waste no time in dragging them off to the amputation center. Truly, a refreshing change of pace.

When we left the Midwest, I opined that it would last any time from two years to forever. Looking back, the decision we made so very long ago was a simple comparison between what we knew intimately and what we had no clue towards. Then, there was no penalty in not deciding. The deadline would have passed, and we would have remained secure in our exurbane existence.

The gist is now as I forebode – is our overseas duration for two years or forever? Another three to five of this and I may not be any good as a design manager, having spent too much time afield. Another three to twenty five in a cube farm might leave me as a quivering lump under my modular furnishings. The decision is seminal, and fast, fast approaching.

Maybe a demonstration is in order. If only to briefly slow things down. Read More......