Road Construction

NO. 8 ROAD: Maysville Bypass

Nov. 11, 2020

Despite several challenges, this four-lane divided highway opened seven months early

(This feature published as "Three Wins in One" in November/December 2020 issue)

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Maysville is a modest-sized community in Jones County, North Carolina.

There a 16-mile piece of roadwork weathered a series of tough challenges to arrive ahead of schedule and on time for this year’s R&B Top 10 Roads.

Of the 4.79 million cu yd of earthmoving on this project, 4.3 million had to be obtained from off-site sources. Fortunately, the JV was prepared. The team set priorities on which properties would take precedence in permitting, in all procuring materials from 10 different locations.

Another challenge was a designed off-site detour that would shut a road down for six months and put school bus traffic down a flood-prone dirt road. NCDOT and the JV formed a DB agreement for the team to design and construct an on-site detour that maintained the original schedule and minimized impacts to the ROW and the environment.

Finally, and certainly biggest, Hurricane Florence devastated Onslow, Jones, and Craven counties. If you witnessed national news of this event, you likely saw footage of these counties as they were the worst hit areas in North Carolina. The teams’ laydown yard was underneath 15 ft of water, an issue that set the team back five months and required nearly $1 million in repairs.

However, thorough plans were put together in conjunction with NCDOT, and a calculated approach to rebuilding the project ensued. With an acceleration process already put into place, the project was remarkably still able to open to traffic over seven months ahead of schedule.

Of the manner in which crews addressed and bested these challenges, Peter Distefano, Project Manager for Balfour Beatty US Civils, said: “This project was truly a team effort bringing together the expertise of NCDOT and our JV to tackle complex issues quickly, including recovery from damages caused by one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the state of North Carolina. The team overcame this along with a multitude of other issues to open the 16-mile-long highway nearly eight months ahead of schedule and under budget.”