ForConstructionPros.com

As the general contractor on the highway realignment portion of the project, Oregon Mainline Paving was charged with the construction of a divided four-lane full-depth asphalt roadway.

As a contractor specializing in heavy highway construction and road building, approximately 50 percent of the company's annual $40 to $60 million in revenue is self-performed paving work. Thirty percent of Oregon Mainline's revenue is tied to work performed by subcontractors (bridge work, striping, guardrail, etc.); and the remaining 20 percent is tied to earthwork.

With 90 percent of its work generated by ODOT, Oregon Mainline Paving uses most of the approximate 500,000 tons of HMA it produces annually to support its own crews working on those projects. With three portable plants, the contractor is equipped to travel the state to work on ODOT projects.

U.S. 97 project
According to Matt Seehawer, general manager for Oregon Mainline Paving, the contractor moved 463,000 cubic yards of embankment, installed 10,000 feet of drainage pipe and placed 140,000 tons of aggregate (basalt rock) base before actual paving could begin.

"The only challenge we faced during construction related to the drainage ability of building the new road over the solid rock conditions that exist in this part of the state," Seehawer says. "We were able to use cinder (basalt/volcanic) rock to construct the aggregate base and that provided the drainage we needed while allowing us to achieve a compacted subbase."