Although it started a little later than many had hoped, a $2.2 million road project covering almost the entire length of Jerry Dove Drive – or State Route 279 – began this past Monday, according to Jason Nelson, West Virginia Division of Highways District 4 Construction Engineering.

 

“The work started Monday with the contractor setting up the milling equipment and they followed that up with removing the top layers of the old asphalt, which was about two inches that came off,” said Nelson. “They want to remove that and reprofile the roadway to make sure the profile will be good and smooth.”

 

Nelson expected the milling to already be completed. He said there was an outside chance some minor milling work could take part at the early part of this coming week, but anticipated that wouldn’t be the case.

 

The milling led to traffic being reduced to a single lane for large portions of this past week. Regular traffic patterns over a somewhat bumpy road due to the milling had resumed in large parts by Wednesday afternoon.

 

Nelson said the milling will be followed by the most important part of the project, which are the base repairs. He said sections of the base under the existing roadway that will need to be completely dug out and then redone.

 

“There are several sections just east of where the airports runway sections starts that really need attention,” said Nelson. “There is always a chance that as this project moves forward that the contractor will find more base failures than what was anticipated.”

 

Work on the base failures will be a bit more time consuming than some of the other aspects of the road work. It will also likely lead to some other minor traffic disruptions.

 

“When you’re dealing with a base failure in a roadway, you have equipment that needs to be put in place and those areas we’ll likely require the need for a lane to be taken for work purposes,” said Nelson. “Unlike the milling, it won’t be as long an area and the lane closure won’t be for the entire length of the job.”

 

After the base failures are repaired, more milling will take place in areas not impacted by base failures. He said the second phase of milling – unlike the first – will see the material that is removed down to the aggregate and stone base layer recycled.

 

“The material actually is removed and then combined with a cement binder as it’s ground up and can then be put back down,” said Nelson. “After that, we have new pavement that goes back with the asphalt to finish out the project.”

 

Nelson said the contractor is supposed to have all parts of the project by mid-October, which includes multiple items beyond the paving including some drainage issues. He said the majority of the paving should be complete by mid-August.

 

Bear Contracting of Bridgeport is handling the project. Three companies bid on the road work.