| Houston Downtown/Midtown Transit Street Projects
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Houston Downtown/Midtown
Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County
(METRO) operates over a 1279-square-mile (3313-km2) service area
and logs over 100 million passenger-boarding trips per year. In
June 1998, Metro began the $215 million, five-year Downtown/Midtown
Transit Streets program to improve transit services and traffic
and pedestrian mobility, and enhance the physical environment of
all transit streets within the central business district. Over 57
individual construction contracts made up the program.
The program involved the replacement of 34 miles (55 km) of existing
asphalt-constructed streets with concrete pavement for four new
bus lanes per street. Drainage and utility improvements included
the unusual feature of an inverted street crown that drains stormwater
away from curb areas to the middle of the curb lanes, protecting
pedestrians from splash. The diverted water runs into two 64-foot
(19.5-m) long concrete trench drains covered with 9-inch (230-mm)
wide grates located in the middle of the lanes. Architectural and
aesthetic enhancements include precast concrete block pavers to
delineate pedestrian crosswalks, new bus shelters and information
kiosks, landscaping, and street lighting. Conduits were installed
for a future intelligent traffic control system.
With construction materials in short supply due to the Houston
building boom, material for the pavement base was recovered from
concrete excavated during removal of existing pavement, curbs and
gutters, sidewalks, and utility and landscaping structures. Of the
estimated 1.2 to 1.5 million tons (1.1 to 1.4 million metric tons)
of excavated concrete, half was recycled and used as a 10-inch (254-mm)
“flex base course” under the pavement. Pavement designers
recommended using recycled crushed concrete based on past experience
and laboratory testing. Both have shown that recycled crushed concrete
is equivalent to newly mined materials, therefore offering cost
savings while reducing environmental impact.
Project Credits
Owner: Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston,
TX
Construction Manager: Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc./Brown
& Root, Houston TX
Recycling: Southern Crushed Concrete, Inc., Houston, TX |
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