Hwy 31/280 Red Mountain Expressway – Jefferson County

Owner:

ALDOT

Designer:

ALDOT

Paving Contractor:

A.G. Peltz Group, LLC

Paving Machine:

ABG Titan

Mixing Plant:

Aran 280C

General Contractor:

A.G. Peltz Group, LLC

Completion Date:

RCC – Phase I prior to July 2022, Phase II prior to November 2022

A.G. Peltz Group, LLC and sister company, Abramson Concrete, Inc. are constructing a safety enhancement and capacity improvement project for ALDOT on the 120,000 ADT daily Red Mountain Expressway near downtown Birmingham. The project consists of removing the raised islands, retrofitting numerous bridge rails, placing median barrier wall, and placing Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) on the Red Mountain Expressway (Hwy 31/280). The RCC includes 16,427 SY of 7″ RCC for the median and 6,440 SY of 10″ RCC for the addition of acceleration lanes & ramp widening. The RCC for the median was placed between 18-24’ in width using two passes while the RCC for the acceleration lanes & ramps ranged from 9-12 feet in width.

With the 2022 World Games coming to Birmingham, ALDOT was tasked with improving both the structural capacity and ride safety of Hwy 31/280 near downtown while still minimizing traffic disruption to the public. Since RCC can be placed 10″ thick and 30′ wide in a single pass, it was uniquely positioned to meet this challenge.

All RCC was placed at night between 7:00 PM and 6:00 AM. This was ALDOT’s first use of RCC for a median lane and an acceleration lane, and 2nd use of RCC for a ramp application. This was also the first DOT project in the United States to use RCC as a footing for the median barrier.