The Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) C-470 Express Lanes project team is using an innovative process to transport concrete to the center lanes of the highway.
The process uses an 85-foot long and 16-foot wide conveyor belt to move concrete 18 feet. A four-foot guardrail protects workers and drivers from the conveyor belt.
Concrete will be mixed at the batch plant, loaded onto the conveyor, moved across C-470 and loaded onto trucks in the median. The trucks will transport the concrete to its destination.
Using the system eliminates 20 minutes of drive time from the batch site to the work zone and reduces necessary road closures for paving.
“Using this system will eliminate more than 6,000 truckloads of concrete from entering and exiting the median, and will also help cut down on emissions and fuel consumption” Mike Keleman, C-470 Express Lanes project director, said. “Safety is CDOT’s number one priority, which is one of the many reasons we decided to move forward with a conveyor system. Cutting down on the amount of trucks entering and exiting the highway will help alleviate slowdowns on C-470, and will actually help accelerate this portion of the project.”
Work will be conducted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The $276 million project is located in Douglas County.