South Ninth paving put on halt till Friday

    Paving began on South Ninth Avenue Wednesday but had to be shut down later that day when the tracks on the paving machine broke. Washington City Engineer Rob McDonald said the road crew will try to resume paving Friday and continue next week.

    The paver started its work on Van Buren and was heading north to Washington Street. It paved about 30 feet of concrete before breaking down. The distance from Van Buren to Washington Street is 2,100 feet, which means the paver had done a little more than 1 percent of the road under construction. Jasper Construction out of Newton was contracted for the project.

    McDonald said the road crew would spend Thursday removing the curb and gutter and fixing the paver. He said they have to replace pins in the paver?s tracks.

    ?If they do pave tomorrow (Friday), they won?t be able to pave early because of the temperature,? said McDonald. ?They?ll have to wait until the middle of the day.?

    The road workers will have to wait until the temperature rises to 35 degrees, said McDonald. The weather forecast predicts a low of 25 Thursday night. McDonald said paving probably won?t begin until 11 a.m. Friday, and will finish between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. 

    When the temperature drops below 35 at night, the crew has to cover the concrete with a layer of burlap. When it falls below freezing, they must apply two layers (one may be plastic), and below 25 degrees they must apply four layers of burlap with one layer of plastic. McDonald said that applying one or two layers is not so onerous but that four layers becomes quite bothersome.

    Fortunately for the road workers, temperature highs are expected to climb into the 60s with lows in the 40s next week. McDonald said they may not need to cover the concrete at all if that is the case.  

    Under the original schedule, paving was expected to be finished Friday. McDonald said he has pushed that deadline back because of the broken paver and because the warm weather will allow for paving later into the month than previously planned. He also remarked that there is no hard and fast schedule to which the contractors are being held, apart from the requirement that they finish the entire project ? from Washington Street to East Polk Street ? in 100 working days. The current plan is to pave from Van Buren to East Polk streets in the spring.  

For more, see our Nov. 4 print edition.