While You Were Sleeping

CHALLENGE: Construction on main artery road - traffic delays
SOLUTION: Night work

Recently, a crew from Team Elmer’s burned the midnight oil – and watched the sun rise – working at one of Traverse City’s busiest intersections at West Front and Division streets.

The work, funded through the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, was a remediation project resulting from a gas leak many years ago from underground fuel tanks, explains John Prescott, Team Elmer’s estimator and project manager. The tanks have long since been removed, but contaminants had traveled out to the roadway and fuel recovery wells had to be installed under the state trunkline.

Team Elmer’s was hired through Wilcox Professional Services to “lay the plumbing” to allow for installation of the wells, Prescott says. The work had to be done in two phases to allow one northbound lane and one southbound lane to remain open at all times. Due to traffic, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) limited the work to “after hours” only. It also didn’t allow lane closures to be erected until 6 p.m. and the state highway had to be fully open again by 6 a.m.

The crew endured a couple of hours of rush hour traffic before vehicular activity started tapering off, Prescott says. But even at 3 a.m., there were cars and trucks regularly rolling by. Was there ever a moment when Prescott didn’t see a car coming in either direction? Nope, he says.

While the project was originally designed to allow for seven nights of construction MDOT would only allow five, again wanting to lessen the impact on the more than 20,000 vehicles that travel the state highway daily.

One of the most critical aspects of night work? Prescott says making sure workers have the right type and amount of lighting to do the work, while at the same time not blinding the passing drivers.