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Along with being a major project for Oregon Mainline Paving, the Redmond U.S. 97 realignment also proved to be an ideal paving project to execute.

"We typically place approximately 240,000 tons of asphalt annually on mill and fill projects, along with a couple of major interchange projects (like the Redmond U.S. 97 realignment)," Seehawer says. "So this was a significant project for us and without traffic to contend with, it allowed us to maintain an aggressive construction schedule."

With a new 10-inch aggregate base and 10-foot concrete median barrier in place, the contractor's paving crew took over in placing approximately 110,000 tons of ODOT Level 3 12.5mm dense-graded Superpave hot mix asphalt to construct an 11-inch-thick perpetual pavement structure.

The full-depth asphalt surface design was specified by ODOT based on life cycle costs, location and usage.

According to John Heacock, Region 4 technology center manager, asphalt is generally specified on projects in Central Oregon (east of the Cascade Mountain Range) because it has performed well on roads that are subjected to studded tires in the winter.