ForConstructionPros.com

Led by two powerful Roadtec milling machines and a Roadtec SB-2500 material transfer vehicle, a modern asphalt paving train relentlessly made its way along the inside high-speed travel lane of LA Rte. 23. The train did far more, however, than just rehabilitate a portion of the mainline highway as it went. It brought back almost three decades of significant memories.

In 1981, over twenty-seven years ago, Bertrand A. Wilson was a foreman and James Fulton was a screed operator on a paver. Both men were working for Barriere Construction Co. LLC on a new four-mile long highway project in Plaquemines Parish, about 30 miles south of New Orleans.

Now, over two and a half decades later, Wilson and Fulton are back on the same job. As times change, so did their positions. They are still with Barriere, but now Bert Wilson is the division president with the company and Jim Fulton is a project superintendent. One thing remains somewhat similar, however, the quality the company puts into the roads they build, pave, mill and resurface. That remains unchanged and unchallenged.

This essentially was the reason why Barriere was awarded the 1983 National Asphalt Paving Association's prestigious Sheldon G. Hayes award for excellence in roadbuilding and asphalt paving on this project.

One very interesting fact about the project, however, is the cost and quantity differential between the two projects. The original contract with the Louisiana State Highway Department was for $7,098,529 and called for 124,300 tons of asphalt.