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TAYLORSVILLE — New pavement is in place in the southbound lanes of the huge I-215 rebuild on the west side, but the northbound side is still a construction zone.
Heavy equipment is breaking up the old pavement and preparing the surface for new concrete.
“Approximately 225,000 to 250,000 tons of this old concrete is being removed off this road,” said Kelly Ross, project manager for Staker Parson Cos.
Day and night, big haul trucks line up as a large track hoe excavator fills them up with chunks of pavement that motorists have been driving on for about 40 years.
All of that pavement that’s dug up is hauled to the pit at Staker Parkson on Beck Street in North Salt Lake, where the big chunks go through a transformation.
"(It's) hauled into that pit and then sent through a crushing process and reprocessed into a road base or granular borrow or rock material that can be used in various applications throughout the industry," Ross said. “From the time it’s loaded out to the time it gets through the crusher to its new product, it’s a matter of minutes."
“Twenty years ago, it would have been a different story. All of this material would have ended up in a landfill," said John Gleason, spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation. “Now we have the ability to recycle it, to reuse it in future projects. It's great because it saves us money, and it's just the right thing to do for the environment."
The $105 million project that began last May includes concrete repaving the freeway from state Route 201 to 4700 South. Ross said northbound lanes should be repaved in September, and the job should be completely finished by October or November.
Contributing: Viviane Vo-Duc
