The next few photos show the dowel bar retrofit pavement rehabilitation process. Once slots are cut across the joints between concrete panels, workers use jackhammers to remove enough pavement to insert the dowel bars.
Dowel bars are inserted into the slots in the pavement. The bars link the concrete panels and prevent the panels from rubbing against each other and becoming worn.
With the dowel bars in place, crews fill the slots with concrete and use equipment to vibrate the wet concrete so it settles properly.
After vibrating the concrete, workers finish the surface so it will be smooth to drive across.
Finally, crews sawcut the new concrete at the panel joint to prevent cracking. The dowel bar retrofit process extends the life of existing pavement by ten to fifteen years.
Crews have been busy setting a temporary construction platform at the northbound I-5 bridge over Military Road. Compare the photo from earlier this month at the bottom of this page.
Crews are paving next to the newly built retaining walls on the right side of the southbound exit ramp to S. 320th. The ramp will be shifted here from its temporary location on the left in a few weeks. On the right side of this photo, you can see crews have spread bark on the slopes above the new retaining walls to prepare for planting, which will prevent erosion.
Crews are placing grout between the pre-cast concrete panels on the S. 317th bridge deck.
Crews have built the first three levels of the five-level parking garage for Sound Transit's new Federal Way Transit Center. Compare last month's photo of transit center construction.
Workers are placing a layer of steel on the ramp between the third and fourth levels of the new Federal Way Transit Center parking garage.
This is a large water quality detention vault on the southwest corner of the new transit center site. You can see a worker building the forms for one of the interior walls of the vault.
Crews placing concrete pavement in the new location of the southbound exit ramp to S. 320th (just west of the ramp's current location). In the foreground you can see dowel bars that are being placed at panel joints to make the pavement last longer. Read about the dowel bar technique in our March 8 e-mail update.
We've made progress on the supports for the additional width on the northbound I-5 bridge over Military Road (right). Compare this January 28 photo. We're widening the bridge so we can extend the HOV lanes further south.