Project Description:
As a part of the Central Avenue Design-Build project, Allan Myers worked with the City of Baltimore to repair and reconstruct S Central Ave to improve its roadway, traffic signals, utilities, safety, and overall aesthetics. The project contract required at least one travel lane to be open for each direction during the project’s construction to reduce its impact on traffic, which significantly impacted construction on the Fleet St and S Central Ave intersection. Construction had to be done in several different phases to maintain traffic flow, which could have delayed the project’s completion unnecessarily. Since the project has been completed, we are looking back and assessing if it would be more valuable to cause major impact for a shorter period of time using a full detour as opposed to minor impact for a longer period of time using multiple phases. To do this we created a new Maintenance of Traffic (MOT) plan for the full closure, ran simulations of the full detour in VISSIM, created a safety matrix assessing the risks and impacts of the full detour compared to the baseline conditions, conducted a survey to gauge public opinion, determined the amount of schedule days saved, and conducted a benefit-cost analysis of the full detour to determine if it is a viable alternative.
