Published Nationally ®
Southeast Edition
July 31 2019
$3.00
Vol. XXXII • No. 16
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
Conti to Deliver Outer Loop by September
Remembering Army’s CrossCountry Trek...8
Planning for the Outer Loop began in the late 1980s, and the first phase of the project opened in 2005. Carolina Cat’s Women LEAD Demo Day...20
Va.’s RJ Smith Chooses Hydrema...26
By Irwin Rapoport CEG CORRESPONDENT
The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s ongoing effort to construct the future Interstate 295, also known as the Fayetteville Outer Loop, has partially opened to traffic. But a total of four other sections remain either under construction, design or development. One of the four sections is being built by Conti Enterprises Inc., which received a $124.5
million contract from NCDOT in 2014 to build the segment from the All American Freeway to Cliffdale Road. The highway has two lanes in each direction, and Conti’s section required the construction of 17 bridges ranging from approximately 150 to 1,600 ft. in length. On May 2, the North Carolina Board of Transportation officially designated I-295 as the Airborne & Special Operations Highway, as well as dedicating the section of I-295 between
I-95 in Cumberland County and Ramsey Street in Fayetteville after Lyndo Tippett, the state’s longest-serving transportation secretary (20012009). The section at N.C. 87 Bypass in Elizabethtown, not part of the Outer Loop, was named after Mac Campbell, a transportation board member from Bladen County for eight years under former Gov. Mike Easley. The first two segments of I-295 were opened in 2003 and 2005, and the next section to open see LOOP page 66
Table of Contents ............4
Report: Poor Infrastructure Grades, Again
Paving Section ..........29-43
By Joe Trinacria CEG ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Backhoes & Attachments Section ......................45-57 Parts Section ..................59 Business Calendar ........74 Auction Section ........76-81 Advertisers Index ..........82
Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) produces a comprehensive report grading various zones of infrastructure on both the national and statewide levels. Although infrastructure often goes overlooked or is even taken for granted altogether, it remains our country’s lifeblood and serves as the foundation upon which our
daily lives are ultimately carried out. With the release of each ASCE report comes the reluctant affirmation of a grim set of facts that many of us already know too well about our most vital — we as a society have allowed our bridges and roads to decay to the point of near ruin. As with the previous ASCE Infrastructure Report Card, which examined conditions for the year 2013, the cumulative GPA of the United States as a whole is once
again a D+ in the organization’s latest summary. The individual categories of infrastructure that the ASCE took into consideration is as follows: Aviation, Bridges, Dams, Drinking Water, Energy, Hazardous Waste, Inland Waterways, Levees, Ports, Public Parks, Rail, Roads, Schools, Solid Waste, Transit and Wastewater. Out of the 16 zones of infrastructure that were surveyed, only four received passing grades. The scores ranged from as high as a B
for Rail to a D- for Transit on the low end of the scale. While any of the failing grades should be enough cause for concern, perhaps none is more troublesome than the D that was given to roads. According to the current ASCE report for 2017 (the most up-to-date year available), the U.S. government has been underfunding its highway system for years, resulting in a $836 billion backlog of highway and see REPORT page 20