ForConstructionPros.com

Never one to back away from new technology, Grace Pacific Corp. is undertaking the State of Hawaii's first Stone Matrix Asphalt Pavement (SMA) project. The Moanalua Freeway project is being done simultaneously with the Interstate H-1 rehabilitation project. Hawaiian Dredging and Construction Co. is the general contractor of the $14.6-million project, with Grace Pacific serving as the paving subcontractor.

The asphalt contractor's $5.2-million portion of the project involves milling 3 1/2 inches off 23 lane miles of the existing road where the two-inch SMA mat is placed, milling 16 lane miles where the 1 1/2-inch State IV Mix mat is placed, and milling off 15 lane miles where the two-inch Superpave mat is placed.

The Hawaii DOT is using the 5-mile construction project to compare the performance characteristics of SMA and Superpave mixes on designated portion of the four-lane roadways. One of the unique features of these two projects is that the Moanalua Freeway is federally funded, while the H-1 project is 100-percent state financed.

Moanalua Freeway was built in the late 1960s, and was one of the main corridors to Honolulu from the outlying areas to the west. The area is filled with Hawaiian history because it was one of the most populated areas during the monarchy period, and it holds a wealth of cultural significance for native Hawaiians.

A question many ask is "How can you have an interstate highway on an island?" The answer is that the Interstate Highway System is actually a system of interstate and defense-access highways, and H-1 qualifies as such, since it linked the Army's Schofield Facility to Pearl Harbor, where the Arizona Memorial is located, and also now the USS Missouri.