Published Nationally ®
Southeast Edition
August 24 2011
$3.00
Vol. XXIV • No. 17
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
A Lane of Their Own: VDOT to Construction Add Truck Climbing Lanes on I-81 Spending Up During June
Company Going Green One Hybrid at a Time…8
Crews Eye H elp From the Sky on Big Miss. Job…32
Tom Saunders, Virginia Department of Transportation photo
One of the three new bridges being constructed on the project.
By Brenda Ruggiero CEG CORRESPONDENT Motl ey Auct ion Hol ds Two-Day Sale in Va. …68
Table of Contents ............4
A new truck climbing lane is currently under construction in Virginia along Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County near Lexington.
The project is reportedly in line with a resolution passed by the Commonwealth Transportation Board in Oct. 2006 that directed the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to implement a program of safety improvements to I-81, see LANES page 16
Truck & Trailer Section .... ..................................24-27
Long-Delayed Job Moves Ahead
Crushing, Screening & Recycling Section ....39-50
By Lori Lovely
Attachment Section .......... ..................................51-55 Business Calendar ........57 Parts Section ................57 Auction Section ......62-71 Advertisers Index ..........70
Plans to widen U.S. 17 Alternate have been considered for 20 to 30 years, said Steve Ulery, project manager for U.S. Group, Inc. Ulery, who has lived in the area a long time, believes “it should have been widened years ago,” particularly since the housing boom has added a lot of fast-moving traffic to the two-lane road. “There are lots of people living here now, but nobody thought about the road,” he lamented. They’re thinking about it now, and Ulery’s help-
CEG CORRESPONDENT
ing to bring about the much-needed and long-awaited change. U.S. 17 Alt was created in the early 1950s as an alternate route for mainline U.S. 17, but for years, traffic jams have resulted from a housing boom in the area, flooding an overloaded rural two-lane highway. “It’s a high-volume road,” said John Paulus, resident construction engineer, S.C. Department of Transportation (SCDOT). He quotes figures that indicate an average daily traffic (ADT) of 16,100 in see ALTERNATE page 56
Construction spending edged up 0.2 percent in June as increases in private nonresidential construction outweighed continuing declines in private residential and public construction spending, the Associated General Contractors of America reported in an analysis of new Census Bureau data. The construction trade association’s chief economist, Ken Simonson, predicted further imbalances in spending, with further cuts in public spending likely to offset most or all of the gains in private investment. “Private nonresidential construction is rebounding, thanks to renewed investments in power, manufacturing, and warehousing and distribution facilities,” Simonson said. Simonson noted that private nonresidential construction jumped 1.8 percent from May to June and that nine of the 11 categories that the Census Bureau breaks out recorded gains for the month. The largest monthly increases were in manufacturing and power construction, both up 4.0 percent; commercial (retail, warehouse and farm) construction, up 3.1 percent; and health care construction, up 2.3 percent. Simonson remarked that public construction spending dropped 0.7 percent in June, bringing the total decline since March 2009 to 14.3 percent. The two largest public categories have fallen by double-digit rates over the past year: highway and street construction fell 1.6 percent in June and 10.4 percent year-over-year, while educational construction dropped 4.1 percent for the month and 13.0 percent compared with June 2010 levels.