In Nevada, Aggregate Industries SWR has been awarded a $58.6 million contract to widen and upgrade a 6-mile stretch of Blue Diamond Road (State Route 160) which is a critical corridor in southwest Clark County, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) says.
Contractors, in total, will use 2.4 million pounds of reinforcing steel – or enough to build 650 cars – and move enough dirt to fill 120 Olympic-sized swimming pools, says NDOT spokesman Tony Illia.
Project plans call for expanding the asphalt highway from two to four travel lanes between Mile Markers 16 and 22, while rebuilding and paving the eastbound lanes from the western edge of the Mountain Springs Community to just before the Nye County line, Illia says.
“This vital southwest valley corridor serves as a crucial link between Las Vegas and Pahrump,” he says.
“Rapid development, additional residents, and increased travel has ratcheted the need for freeway improvements. This project, as a result, will expand capacity and enhance motorist safety while also improving mobility and reliability.”
Other contract work, he says, consists of placing 5 miles of raised concrete median barrier, installing new signage and flattening side slopes for safer turnouts, as well as hydro-seeding 28 acres and planting 784 new trees while salvaging and replanting more than 1,000 cacti.
The Mountain Springs Community, meanwhile, will receive new frontage roads, improved intersection lighting and an emergency signal for Clark County Volunteer Fire Station #79, Illia says.
Construction also entails new cattleguards and a wildlife undercrossing near Mile Marker 18, with 10 miles of combined deer and tortoise fencing.
Crews will place 590 boulders, 14,000 cubic yards of rip-rap, and 1,706 tons decorative rock for landscaping and aesthetics that also help with erosion control and storm water runoff, he says.
Crews also will place flood control channels, box culverts and 6 miles of storm drainage pipe up to 4 feet in diameter.
The project is scheduled to start in September, with anticipated completion in August 2020.
The St. Croix Crossing between Minnesota and Wisconsin, completed and opened in August 2017, is an excellent example of how Aggregate Industries delivers value outside of our “traditional boundaries” of cement, concrete and aggregate, the company says. The bridge spans bluff to bluff at a height of 140’ above the water. The entire bridge contains approximately 160,000 cubic yards of concrete.
