When construction team members working on one of the stretches of the $130 million U.S. Highway 151 widening project got a look at the soil under the proposed roadway, they did not like what they saw.

The soil was unsuitable to support a road, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Mashuda Contractors Inc. of Princeton, Wis., a prime contractor on the project.

"We don't know if this is part of the Horicon Marsh, which is a large marsh and wildlife preserve" in eastern Wisconsin, said Mark Klipstein, project manager for WisDOT's field office in Fond du Lac. "We seem to run into a lot of marshy material that wasn't properly addressed in the design process. It's silty, saturated, organic material.
Mashuda is hauling in clean soil from its borrow pit sites adjacent to the project."

The project is designed to widen U.S. 151 to four lanes from Waupun to Fond du Lac.
At State Trunk Highway 23 in Fond du Lac, the road will narrow to two lanes for its last mile to State Trunk Highway 149 on the north side of Fond du Lac.

The original plans called for excavating about 2 million cu. yds. of soil, said Cliff Mashuda Jr. of Mashuda Contractors. But by the time the work is done, about 3 million cu. yds. will be used because of the unsuitable subsoils, he added.

The contractor is using up to six scrapers, augmented by a dozen CAT 740s loaded with CAT 385 backhoes. "That's to bring all the fill from the offsite sources, and to take out all the unsuitable soil - all the earthwork," Mashuda said.

2007 Target Completion

This soil is just one of many obstacles likely to confront WisDOT and the U.S. 151 project's prime contractors before the widening and reconstruction effort is complete in fall 2007.

The 25-mi.-long stretch of roadway currently has three active contracts totaling $45 million, each headed by a different prime contractor. Mashuda is prime contractor on the section extending from State Trunk Highway 49 to Hickory Road, a distance of 3.7 mi. Work began in May 2002 and is slated for completion in late fall, Klipstein said.

Another section runs from State Road Highway 149 to State Trunk Highway 23, a distance of 3.4 mi. The prime contractor is James Peterson & Sons of Medford, Wis.
Work began in September and is expected to be finished in the fall.

The third section goes from Hickory Drive north to Thill Road, a length of 5.3 mi. Streu Construction of Two Rivers, Wis., is the prime contractor. Work started in May and is slated to finish in fall 2004.

Safety Upgrades Needed

WisDOT needed to turn its attention to U.S. 151, Klipstein said. "It's been overlaid and overlaid so many times that the ride condition is very poor right now," he added. "The volume exceeds safety and traffic flow criteria, and the crash rate in the area is above statewide average for comparable thoroughfares."

As part of the project, WisDOT will eliminate access on some sections of the road.
The additional lanes, median, realigned intersections and reduced number of access points are likely to help improve safety and traffic flow, Klipstein said.

The road is a major thoroughfare between Madison and Fond du Lac, with high truck and auto volume, and parts of the stretch are being built next to live traffic.
Nonetheless, dealing with traffic during construction is not expected to be a serious problem.

On Mashuda's section, a frontage road was built first and traffic diverted to it while widening work takes place on the highway. On the other two sections, a new two-lane road was built first, and traffic is being moved to that road while construction teams attend to reconstructing existing lanes.

Six in. of crushed aggregate base course will be placed over the soil subgrade on the highway. On top of the aggregate base course will go 4 in. of open-graded base course. The drain system will be installed within this layer, consisting of a 4 in. pipe.
Over the open-graded base course goes 10 in. of concrete.

At the joints, construction teams will place dowel baskets before pouring concrete.

The dowels are reinforcement bars that prevent the concrete joints from faulting, or moving up and down, which severely reduces both ride quality and pavement life, Klipstein said. The baskets are designed to hold the dowels in place.

"So when you pour the concrete, since the baskets are anchored down and they don't move, we get the bars exactly where we want them," he added. "We end up sawing that joint after the concrete is cured out, and we saw our joint over the bars."

Bridge Work

In the section headed by Mashuda, two bridges are being replaced over the Rock River. Six bridges in the Highway 26 interchange and two in the Business 151 interchange are being added.

"The alignment is changing so the existing structures were useless," Klipstein said.
"So we're just replacing them. Not only didn't the new alignment match them, but the useful life of the structures was over."

The U.S. 151 project will also feature one federally funded experimental bridge. The structure is to be located in the northern part of the section headed by Mashuda and will carry U.S. 151 traffic over State Trunk Highway 26.

The experimental bridge is the result of a research project involving the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It will boast a fiberglass-reinforced bridge deck.

The deck is notable not only for its use of alternative materials but because it won't contain steel, Klipstein said. That should help eliminate delamination of the deck, which occurs when steel rebar begins to rust.

The experimental structure also features unique construction methods.

Typically, a plywood layer is laid down on the deck during construction, then removed after the concrete is poured, Klipstein said. "But we have a permanent deck made out of fiber-reinforced material that stays in after the concrete is poured," he added. "It's just another part of the strengthening of the deck."

Those involved in the project speak highly of the level of coordination and cooperation thus far. "It was a very well designed project, good materials to work with, good people from the DOT," said Jeff Peterson, owner of James Peterson & Sons Inc.

His company's only setback was finding a short stretch of poor soils near a wetland mitigation site, he said. The discovery of those soils necessitated working during freezing weather in November and December to remove the material.

Klipstein said he is happy to be part of the project. "I've been fortunate to be working with good contractors and Fond du Lac County officials," he added.