Monday, 7 June, 6 P.M., a tour with James Construction's Regional Engineer was taken. The following pictures will give you a pictorial account of what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks. Before the pictures begin, you need to know North Bound traffic will be switched to the Salado Plaza Bridge this Saturday evening, 11 June.
Now the pictures. Let's begin with 2484 Bridge.
The railing on the north side of the bridge following the tree line is completed. The railing on the South side is under construction. Soon the bare area with the exposed rods will receive concrete. The bridge will open soon. It is the frontage road from the north, Belton, that is delaying the opening. The weather has kept the frontage road from receiving the necessary completion work.
Standing on the west side of 2484 and looking toward the Holiday Inn Express, one can see that 2484 is ready for traffic. It will not be long.
Remember the shortcut road that ran from 2484 to the frontage road (behind the Vetenarian office). It will soon be a cul-de-sac as the work in this picture indicates.
Standing underneath the Salado Plaza Bridge and looking toward Brookshires. East and West Salado Plaza Road will open approximately in 2-3 weeks.
An important picture. Looking south toward Austin. Notice the unfinished wall. The road to the left with no traffic was a couple of weeks ago the Southbound I-35 before being switched to the Salado Plaza Bridge. (The trucks on the east side of the concrete barrier are on the current North-bound I-35). The old I-35 south bound road is 2-lanes. The lane nearest the bridge is the normal driving lane. The lane next to the concrete barriers is the passing lane. The wall with the polls in the air will be extended to cover the normal driving lane. The wall blocks will be added to include a stagecoach pulled by horses embedded in the rock. It will be exactly the same as the one on the west side (Sonic-side) of the bridge. Extending the wall looks major, but it is not as difficult as it looks according to the Regional engineer. The wall could not be completed until all north and south I-35 traffic was traveling on the bridge. That will happen Saturday evening with the North bound traffic switched to the bridge. South bound traffic is already traveling on the bridge.
Underneath the bridges that cross Salado Creek are collection ponds of rock held in place by steel rods and metal nets. During a rain, the water on the bridge is channeled by curbs underneath the concrete railing (see railing in picture below) to the north and south collection points. The water goes to the collection ponds and drains through the cleaning rock filters before going into the creek.
Constructing the large landscape beds on the Salado north and south entrances. The beds will have an irrigation system for watering. In addition to these beds will be the beautiful Salado welcoming gates not pictured in this photo.
Looking down from the Holland road bridge, see the current north bound traffic (white bus and cars) and the newly constructed permanent north bound I-35 with no traffic. North bound traffic will be diverted to this road Saturday night.
VR/Skip
Mayor praising James Construction will further enable their sorry pathetic butts.
ReplyDeleteAs a taxpayer there isn’t any reason whatsoever I see where praise is due except in the areas where the few good employees of theirs try to follow the contract or at least think before they do anything stupid like their senior management appears to enjoy doing.
The idiots overseeing the work are either dumb, blind or they honestly don’t give a crap. The TxDOT 2004 standard specifications or as amended by the Special Provisions doesn’t allow what the pictures are showing. The topsoil picture you’ve provided says some dummy didn’t want to comply with the contract or get their lazy butts out of the pickup seat to inspect the work before it was placed knowing it contains rock and other objectionable materials. That is in addition to the other garbage seen as I drive around the project. This group is the sorriest bunch that if they worked for my boss would’ve been fired long ago and we would've been done a year ago if not sooner.
Not to mention their housekeeping and safety. What a joke. Look at the photos and drive around and look at the crap they enjoy whereas most companies wouldn’t ever allow such horrid conditions to ever exist. That group seems to be too freaken lazy, cocky, and arrogant to get off their lazy pathetic butts and enforce the basics, housekeeping 101.
If you let up or praise them they’ll continue to do what they do best which is absolutely nothing good but collect a fat paycheck that enables them to flush even more Wall Street investor’s money down the toilet bowl thinking they’ll prevail in a claim against the taxpayers.
It is funny though watching them work throughout the I-35 projects and all the stupid stuff they appear to enjoy doing.
Mayor might have our patrol officers look into the eyes of their senior managers if he drives around our town or comes to any of the meetings. He’s the guy with the pin point eyes and throws his rage fits. Quite a few of their employees talking at lunch suspect this guy’s mood & anxiety dysfunctionality they deal with, that’s in addition to the what they said about his pin sized pupils that lean towards systems of opioid usage. We want our public roads to be safe and don’t need people driving around if they aren’t supposed to be driving.
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