So far the biggest hiccup in the FM 306 project has been a ruptured gas line earlier this week, and that was handled within a few short hours. What's more, the rupture wasn't caused by contractors working directly on the project; rather, the line was hit by contractors employed by AT&T to move telecommunication lines in the area.
Yes, those lines were being moved as part of the project. But because of the way utilities adjustments are done, we don't classify that as "our" work.
That makes what Hunter Industries - our contractor - did in the situation that much more awesome. Most contractors will simply keep working if a situation doesn't involve them. Instead, Hunter took some of their guys off tasks along the project to assist New Braunfels city police and fire crews in directing traffic, re-routing traffic when the leak prompted the closure of FM 306 near I-35.
The appropriate utility company - CenterPoint Energy - responded quickly to stop the leak and repair the line, and work was able to move on.
So let's move on to the work....
As folks drive through the project, the biggest thing they'll notice is a lot - and I mean a lot - of large concrete square tubes. These are culverts, or storm drains, that will hold water from the roadway and keep the surface of the road bare and dry. Since the roadway being built right now is the sides of the road (that's all the flat area being cleared out on either side of the active roadway), the contractor is taking the opportunity to install all the drain structure they can muster right now. You wouldn't think it, but it's the underground structure that's far beneath the actual roadway that makes building a road such a long job....
Driving the project will also call attention to two different bridge structures. One is near Goodwin Lane, and crews are working on a retaining wall that will hold a man-made hill together. We'll use the hill to approach the actual overpass going over the UPRR crossing there. Support columns are already in place for what will be the west-bound side of the road, and we're pushing dirt to form a sort of hybrid frontage road and turnaround area right there at Goodwin.
The other bridge will be near Hunter Road. That one is scheduled to be ready for use by the end of the year - but it's really only the west-bound side, like the Goodwin bridge. Again, the man-made hill is almost built and the support columns are in place. We're fixing a design flaw discovered by the contractor (plans are often hundreds of pages long, and though we have teams of engineers working on these plans a human error occurs once in a while...) before we put on what's called a "column cap", or a shelf that rests on top of the columns to hold the span beams. Those beams form the actual roadway.
Got that?
Again, the bridge we're building is only the west-bound portion, but we will have it open for a single lane in each direction when we reach our next phase of work. That will be sometime around Christmas or New Years.
The good news on that is, when we get that bridge functional, most of the traffic delays in the corridor will disappear - they're related to the crossing railroad traffic.
Another move meant to improve traffic flow is getting the newer, upgraded traffic signals in place and online quickly. The equipment and hardware is all installed, now we're working to connect everything. The new signals are covered by burlap sacks right now, and drivers may notice a camera on the line. This camera is a VIVDS detection camera, making the signals "smart". Once these are online here (by the end of this month, I'm told) we'll see a noticable difference in the flow of traffic.
There you have it. And even though we're still working to free up some of the snags in traffic flow, construction continues to move right along!
