Tag Archives: LRRB

Environment, research

A look at five great environmental research projects

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To mark Earth Day 2016, MnDOT Research Services is taking a glance at five stellar examples of current research projects at MnDOT that involve pollution control, wetland mitigation, road salt reduction and new ways of recycling pavement.

1: Reducing Road Construction Pollution by Skimming Stormwater Ponds 

Temporary stormwater ponds with floating head skimmers can remove clean water from the surface of a settling pond.

Soil carried away in stormwater runoff from road construction sites can pollute lakes and rivers.

Stormwater settling ponds provide a place for this sediment to settle before the water is discharged into local bodies of water. However, since stormwater ponds have limited space, a mechanism is needed to remove clean water from the pond to prevent the overflow of sediment-laden water.

MnDOT-funded researchers designed temporary stormwater ponds with floating head skimmers that can remove clean water from the surface of the settling pond, using gravity to discharge water into a ditch or receiving body.

The study, which was completed in spring 2014, identified five methods for “skimming” stormwater ponds that can improve a pond’s effectiveness by 10 percent. MnDOT researchers also created designs for temporary stormwater ponds on construction sites with the capacity to remove approximately 80 percent of suspended solids.

These designs will help contractors meet federal requirements for stormwater pond dewatering. Researchers also determined how often a pond’s deadpool must be cleaned, based on watershed size and pool dimensions.

2: Roadside Drainage Ditches Reduce Pollution More Than Previously Thought  

Photo of roadside ditch
Stormwater infiltration rates at five swales were significantly better than expected based on published rates.

Stormwater can pick up chemicals and sediments that pollute rivers and streams. Roadside drainage ditches, also known as swales, lessen this effect by absorbing water. But until recently, MnDOT didn’t know how to quantify this effect and incorporate it into pollution control mitigation measures.

In a study completed in fall 2014, researchers evaluated five Minnesota swales, measuring how well water flows through soil at up to 20 locations within each swale.

A key finding: grassed swales are significantly better at absorbing water than expected, which may reduce the need for other, more expensive stormwater management practices, such as ponds or infiltration basins.

This could save MnDOT and counties significant right-of-way and construction costs currently expended on more expensive stormwater management techniques.

3: Could Permeable Pavements Eliminate Road Salt Use on Local Roads? 

Robbinsdale
Even with little or no road salt, a permeable pavement like this porous asphalt in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, collects little slush and snow in the winter because it warms well and remains porous enough to infiltrate surface water effectively.

Road salt is used for de-icing roadways during winter months, but can have a negative impact on the environment.

This research, which was just approved for funding through the Minnesota Local Road Research Board in December 2015, will investigate the reduction in road salt application during winter months that can be attained with permeable pavements, while still providing for acceptable road safety.

Some initial investigations (see previous study) suggest that road salt application can be substantially reduced, even eliminated, with permeable pavement systems. The proposed research will investigate this hypothesis more thoroughly, and further document the reduction in road salt application that can be expected with permeable pavement.

4: Highway 53 Shows Potential of Using Road Construction Excavation Areas For Wetland Mitigation

IMG_2764
This photo from spring 2015 shows that wetlands have begun to take hold along Highway 53.

Road construction in northeast Minnesota often causes wetland impacts that require expensive mitigation. However, borrow areas excavated for road construction material can be developed into wetland mitigation sites if hydric vegetation, hydric soils and adequate hydrology are provided. Fourteen wetland mitigation sites were constructed north of Virginia, Minnesota along the U.S. Trunk Highway 53 reconstruction project corridor and evaluated for wetland.  The sites were established with the goal of mitigating for project impacts to seasonally flooded basin, fresh meadow, shallow marsh, shrub swamp, wooded swamp, and bog wetlands. All but one of the sites consistently meet wetland hydrology criteria.

The sites contain a variety of plant communities dominated by wet meadow, sedge meadow, and shallow marsh. Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) condition categories for the sites range from “Poor” to “Exceptional.”

According to the research report published in March 2016, these sites have shown the potential for creating mitigation wetlands in abandoned borrow pits in conjunction with highway construction. Adaptive management, particularly water level regulation, early invasive species control, tree planting, and continued long-term annual monitoring can make mitigation sites like these successful options for wetland mitigation credit.

5: Recycling Method Could Give Third Lives to Old Concrete Roads 

2016-14 Image
This photo shows a cold in-place recycling equipment train in action.

MnDOT already extends the lives of some old concrete highways by paving over them with asphalt instead of tearing them up. Now MnDOT hopes to add a third life for these old concrete roads by using a process called cold in-place recycling to re-use that existing asphalt pavement when it reaches the end of its life.

Cold in-place recycling (CIR) uses existing pavements, without heat, to create a new layer of pavement. It involves the same process of cold- central plant mix recycling (which is being employed by MnDOT for the first time on two shoulder repair projects this year), but it is done on the road itself by a train of equipment. It literally recycles an old road while making a new road.

CIR has been in use in Minnesota for 20 years, but only with hot-mix asphalt (HMA) over gravel roads. The purpose of a new study, which was approved for funding in April 2016, is to validate Iowa’s promising new practice using CIR on bituminous over concrete.

In this research project (see proposal), MnDOT will use cold-in-place recycling to replace the asphalt pavement on a concrete road and then evaluate it for several years, comparing it also with control sections.

Along with the potential of a better service life, the cost of CIR is much lower than new hot mix asphalt (HMA). Therefore, a 20-percent to 30-percent price reduction per project may be realized.

research, Traffic and Safety

Applying LiDAR to county transportation systems

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A handful of county highway department employees in the Rochester area gathered recently at the Olmsted County Public Works Service Center for a presentation and live demonstration by University of Minnesota Research Fellow Brian Davis about his team’s work involving light detection and ranging – or LiDAR.

“LiDAR is like radar, but with light,” Davis said. “It gives you information about what’s around the sensor.”

Event attendees gather around a sedan outfitted with a spinning LiDAR sensor. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)
Event attendees gather around a sedan outfitted with a spinning LiDAR sensor. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)

Davis and his fellow researchers have outfitted a sedan with special LiDAR equipment and other technology that is capable of capturing a 360-degree, 3-D view of a scene in real time.

“We use the car as a test bed,” Davis said. “We have a lot of different types of sensors on the car that we use for the different projects that we’re working on. Right now we have a LiDAR sensor on top. Sometimes we have a high-accuracy GPS receiver in there. We have a cellular modem. We have a handful of inertial sensors. So it’s a lot of different stuff that we use to cater to the application.”

For his presentation, Davis showed the attendees some of the data his team had already collected.

Davis presents data that shows the LiDAR-equipped sedan moving along a roadway. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)
Davis presents data that shows the LiDAR-equipped sedan moving along a roadway. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)

“We showed a handful of pre-collected data at a handful of intersections around Rochester and Minneapolis,” Davis said. “What it shows is the point cloud collected by the sensor – just the raw point cloud with no post-processing done. In that information you can see people moving through it, cars moving through it, buses and light rail trains.”

Event attendees move around the sedan to see how the LiDAR sensor views them. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)
Event attendees move around the sedan to see how the LiDAR sensor views them. (Photo by Micheal Foley, MnDOT)

After the presentation, Davis led the group to the parking lot for a close-up look at the technology and how it collects data and displays that data in real time. Le Sueur County GIS manager Justin Lutterman was among those who could envision possible applications for LiDAR.

“It’ll be interesting to see where this can go,” Lutterman said. “I’m sure the private industry will take off with this and emergency management, or the sheriffs and ambulances, would appreciate this kind of technology on their vehicles for a situation they might have to recreate. Roads and traffic designers  would be able to monitor their resources, pavements, traffic counts and things like that.”

Over the coming months, researchers will gather more data to develop a workshop for county personnel interested in learning more about LiDAR and how it can be applied in their transportation systems.

“The next steps for this project are to collect some data with the car at intersections. Then we can use that information to fine tune our algorithms,” Davis said. “What the algorithms are going to do is take that raw data and give us useful information, like the number of cars, or the time a car passes through an intersection. That all feeds into the workshop we’re developing. The workshop is going to be for county GIS workers, traffic engineers and county engineers who are interested in learning about these technologies.”

Traffic and Safety

Minnesota: Are You Ready to Mumble?

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In the search for a quieter rumble strip, Minnesota may have found a winner in California.

California’s standard rumble strip design outperformed Minnesota’s and Pennsylvania’s in a comparison study along a rural highway near Crookston, Minnesota. (Read the recently published report.)

“California’s rumble strip still gave significant feedback to drivers, but it was significantly less noticeable outside the vehicle,” said engineering consultant Ed Terhaar, who performed a noise analysis with acoustical engineer David Braslau on behalf of the Minnesota Local Road Research Board.

A California-style sinusoidal rumble strip, installed along a Polk County Highway.
A California-style sinusoidal rumble strip, installed along a Polk County Highway.

Although they serve as an effective warning to drivers, rumble strips can cause unwanted noise when a vehicle drifts over a centerline or edgeline.

Both the LRRB and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which is sponsoring a companion study, are interested in finding a new design that still captures the driver’s attention, but minimizes the sound heard by neighboring residents.

Polk County tests

Terhaar and Braslau’s research showed that Minnesota and California’s designs produce a similar level of interior noise. Although external decibel levels are not that different from each other either, Minnesota’s rumble strip has a considerably stronger tone that can be heard further away.

“California’s sound is less sharp, less intrusive and less noticeable,” Braslau said. “Minnesota’s has a really sharp peak. So while the absolute sound level of California’s isn’t all that much lower, its perception is less.”

Testing was performed using three different vehicles – a passenger car, pickup truck and semi-trailer truck – at three different speeds – 30, 45 and 60 miles per hour.

In general, Pennsylvania’s rumble strip had both a quieter interior and exterior sound than California’s and Minnesota’s.

Like Pennsylvania, California’s rumble strip has what is called a sinusoidal design – a continuous wave pattern that’s ground into the pavement (it’s the style commonly used in Europe and has been called a “mumble strip” because it’s quieter). The main difference between the two is that California’s wave length is 14 inches, while Pennsylvania’s is 24 inches.

Minnesota’s design is much different than the sinusoidal pattern used by the other two states.

“It’s not a continuous wave – it’s basically chunks of pavement taken out at certain intervals with flat pavement in between. It’s more of an abrupt design, whereas California and Pennsylvania’s are more continuous and smooth,” Terhaar explained.

The next step for researchers is to test variations of the California rumble strip design at MnDOT’s Road Research Facility (MnROAD).

The 8-inch rumble strip tested in Crookston is the typical edgeline design used by Polk County, but it was found to be too narrow for semi tires, so MnDOT will look at wider designs in its follow-up study. Researchers will also look at the impacts to motorcyclists and bicyclists, as well as the California rumble strip’s centerline striping capability.

The Minnesota rumble strip, left, and California rumble strip, right.
The Minnesota rumble strip, at left and also pictured in top photo, and California rumble strip, right.

Related Resources

Rumble Strip Noise Evaluation study

MnDOT looks for solution to noisy highway rumble strips – Crossroads article

Materials and Construction

New Tool Measures Impact of Heavy Trucks

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A new tool developed by the Local Road Research Board helps cities and counties assess how much increased heavy vehicle traffic affects local roads.

Researchers created an analysis method and corresponding spreadsheet tool that city and county engineers can use to calculate the impact of heavy vehicles on asphalt roads beyond what was planned in the original pavement design.

The information will help agencies optimize services, such as garbage collection, for the least amount of damage. It will also help agencies better plan roads in new developments, as well as redesign existing roads that are nearing the end of their lives.

Lack of Data

Heavy trucks cause local roads to deteriorate more quickly than passenger vehicles, but it is challenging to quantify the impacts, especially for areas where traffic was not forecast at the time a road was designed.

Many local engineers in Minnesota have requested information about the impact of heavy vehicles in light of new construction, commercial distribution facilities and hauling routes. This information is needed to assist in local road planning and maintenance.

Two Methods

In a newly completed study, investigators developed two methods for calculating heavy vehicle impact:

  • Calculate the additional bituminous material (and associated costs) that would have been required to construct the pavement had the heavy truck traffic been predicted when the pavement was designed.
  • Calculate the portion of a pavement’s design life, measured in equivalent single-axle loads (ESALs), consumed by unanticipated vehicles.

“Before this project, there wasn’t an easy way for an engineer to determine how much a specific truck was going to decrease the life of a road,” said  Deb Heiser, Engineering Director, City of St. Louis Park.

Whereas previous research has calculated the impact of extremely heavy vehicles over the short-term (typically the course of a construction project), this project calculates the impact of long-term increases in traffic from vehicles that are heavy, but still mostly within normal legal weight limits.

The tool can be used for a single street segment or an entire road network. Users can also compare current situations with proposed ones to evaluate the impact of potential changes in heavy traffic levels.

Related Resources
Maintenance Operations

How Better Sign Management Could Save Minnesota Millions

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Replacing traffic signs at the right time is an important science.

Waiting too long can endanger lives and expose an agency to a lawsuit. But replacing traffic signs prematurely could cost a single city tens of thousands of dollars per year.

If fully implemented, new recommendations developed by MnDOT and the Local Road Research Board (LRRB) could save public agencies as much as $41 million over three years by helping them better manage their signs and meet new federal requirements on retroreflectivity without replacing signs prematurely. Here’s how:

Reducing Inventories

At a purchase price of $150 to $250 a piece, plus $20 per year for maintenance, the cost of an unnecessary traffic sign adds up. (Maintenance costs involve replacing signs that have been vandalized, knocked down, or that no longer meet required levels of retroreflectivity.)

In a case study of townships in Stevens County, Minnesota, researcher Howard Preston found that nearly a third of traffic signs were not required and served no useful purpose. The average township has 180 signs, which results in an annual maintenance cost of $3,600. The average county has 10,000 signs — an annual maintenance cost of $200,000.

Public agencies could save a collective $26 million* just by removing unnecessary or redundant signs from the field, Preston said. A traffic sign maintenance handbook developed by the LRRB and MnDOT guides agencies through that process.

Longer  Lives

Traffic signs have more life in them than the typical 12-year manufacturer’s warranty, Preston said. But how often agencies replace them varies throughout the state.

Whereas small municipalities may replace signs on an individual basis through spot-checking for retroflectivity, MnDOT has a schedule. Each of the agency’s 400,000 signs is replaced within 18 years of installation.

Preston found that MnDOT could safely extend the service life of its signs to 20 years, which would save an estimated $1.3 million within the first few years of implementation.

Assuming (in lieu of a research-backed benchmark) that local municipalities would likely start replacing signs around the 15-year mark to ensure compliance with the federal law, Preston estimates that townships, cities and counties could avoid a collective $6 million in unnecessary costs per year just by adhering to the minimum 20-year replacement schedule recommended by the study.

Agencies are required by federal law to have a method in place for ensuring that signs maintain adequate retroreflectivity. A replacement schedule based on science is one way; regular physical inspection is another.

Researchers, who consulted other state’s studies and also examined signs in the field, determined that the life of the modern sign in Minnesota is at least 20 years.

It’s possible that traffic signs actually retain their retroreflectivity for 30 years or more, but further study is needed since sheeting materials on today’s traffic signs haven’t been deployed long enough to know, researchers say.

A test deck at the MnROAD facility will track the condition of Minnesota signs over the next decades — and perhaps push the  recommended replacement cycle longer.

*This figure  and the $41 million total above account for cost savings calculated over an initial, three-year period. Ongoing cost savings thereafter may be different, according to Preston.

Related Resources

Sign Maintenance Management Handbook (PDF, 13 MB, 119 pages)

Traffic Sign Life Expectancy study

research

MnDOT, LRRB Pick New Research Projects with Financials in Mind

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Minnesota’s transportation research governing boards put a new emphasis on financial benefits when selecting next year’s round of transportation research projects.

MnDOT’s Transportation Research Innovation Group (TRIG) and the Local Road Research Board announced their Fiscal Year 2016 funding awards this week after hearing proposals from researchers in several states. They selected 20 research proposals hall-marked by novel approaches to improving the environment, increasing transportation safety, improving construction methods and boosting the bottom line.

“We asked the principal investigator to present the safety and financial benefits up front, and how they can be implemented to improve the transportation system and economic viability of Minnesota,” said MnDOT Research Management Engineer Hafiz Munir. “We’re making a point early in the process to identify those potential benefits, quantify them and document them in our tracking system.”

Researchers will test new technology that could make crack-free pavements; find better, faster and less expensive ways to reclaim roads; and even explore how to use waste material from road construction projects as part of the landscaping to absorb water runoff.

Links are provided below to brief descriptions of each of the projects:

Bridges and Structures

Environment

Maintenance

Materials and Construction

Multimodal

Policy and Planning

Traffic and Safety

Maintenance Operations, Materials and Construction

The 411 on Sign Management

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A revised handbook offers Minnesota cities and counties the latest tips on how to meet new sign retroreflectivity requirements, as well as the 411 on sign maintenance and management – everything from knowing when it’s time to remove a sign to creating a budget for sign replacement.

The best practices guide – produced in conjunction with a new sign retroreflectivity study – also offers case studies from around the state.

“The life cycle of traffic signs, from installation to replacement, is a pretty complex issue and it can be a challenge to get your arms around,” said Tim Plath, Transportation Operations Engineer for the city of Eagan. “This handbook really boils it down into some basic concepts and also gives you the resources to dig deeper if necessary. It’s a good resource to have at your fingertips.”

2014RIC20-1

This handbook updates a previous version issued in 2010, to include new FHWA  retroreflectivity and maintenance and management requirements and deadlines.

“Maintenance/management of a large number of signs can potentially be an administrative and financial challenge for many local road authorities,” explained Sulmaan Khan, MnDOT Assistant Project Development Engineer.

Here’s a video demonstration of a sign life reflectometer (the Gamma 922), another resource MnDOT has available for local government agencies. Cities, townships or counties may borrow the reflectomer by contacting the Office of Materials and Road Research, (651) 366-5508.

Related Resources

Traffic Sign Maintenance/Management Handbook (PDF)

Traffic Sign Life Expectancy – Technical Summary (PDF) and Final Report (PDF)

Gamma 922 demonstration (video)

Environment, Materials and Construction

How roadside drainage ditches reduce pollution

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Stormwater can pick up chemicals and sediments that pollute rivers and streams. Roadside drainage ditches, also known as swales, lessen this effect by absorbing water. But until recently, MnDOT didn’t know how to quantify this effect and incorporate it into pollution control mitigation measures.

In a recently completed study, researchers evaluated five Minnesota swales, measuring how well water flows through soil at up to 20 locations within each swale.

“There’s a big push in Minnesota, and probably everywhere, to do more infiltration,” Barbara Loida, MS4 Coordinator Engineer, MnDOT Metro District, said. “We know that our ditches are doing some of that, but we wanted to look at how much infiltration these ditches are providing.”

A key finding: grassed swales are significantly better at absorbing water than expected, which may reduce the need for other, more expensive stormwater management practices, such as ponds or infiltration basins.

This could save MnDOT and counties significant right-of-way and construction costs currently expended on more expensive stormwater management techniques. While swales were recognized in the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s new Minimal Impact Design Standards, there was a need to quantify the amount of water a swale can absorb so it could receive the appropriate MIDS credits.

Researchers also tested the ability of carbon, iron chips, steel wool and other materials to remove pollutants as ditch check filters—material put into swales to enhance removal of pollutants.

Gradations on a Modified Philip Dunne infiltrometer allow the measurement of stormwater infiltration.
Gradations on a Modified Philip Dunne infiltrometer allow the measurement of stormwater infiltration.
What’s Next?

A follow-up project, which the MPCA is participating in, will seek to clarify the impact of swale roughness on infiltration rates. The goal is a calculator for real-world infiltration rates that MnDOT and local agencies would be able to implement.

MPCA, MnDOT and the city of Roseville are also partnering on a project to install and test the effectiveness of ditch check filters in real-world locations.

Maintenance recommendations should help MnDOT and local agencies ensure that swales operate at maximum efficiency. These recommendations should continue to be revised as knowledge evolves.

Related Resources

*Editor’s note: This article was adapted from our upcoming edition of the Accelerator. Read the newsletter online, or sign up to receive by mail. 

Materials and Construction, Pedestrian

Why is all the colored concrete deteriorating so fast?

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There’s nothing like colored concrete to make a crosswalk, sidewalk or breezeway look snazzy.

But the extra touch that many cities are putting into their downtown streetscapes may not be so pretty in just a few short years.

Early cracking has prompted the city of Vadnais Heights to tear up its colored concrete, and the city of Centerville — which installed colored concrete only six years ago — plans to follow suit, said MnDOT’s Senior Road Research Engineer Tom Burnham.

Both cities participated in a recent study, sponsored by the Local Road Research Board and conducted by MnDOT, to determine what is causing the early deterioration.

Across Minnesota, many of the estimated 45 colored concrete projects have experienced early deterioration, particularly microcracking near contraction joints. While this type of distress also occurs with regular concrete, it appears to be accelerated in the colored concrete projects, within five years in some instances.

Although the newly released study identifies likely causes for the failing colored concrete, further research is needed to evaluate proposed solutions.

Findings

Researchers determined that the colored concrete mixtures have likely been too porous for Minnesota winters, allowing deicing chemicals to leach in and wreak havoc. Although not quite as problematic for sidewalks and medians — which aren’t salted as heavily — it is especially bad for colored crosswalks.

A denser concrete mixture (one formed with less water) is recommended; however, constructing the concrete panels this way will require extra steps.

“There are chemicals that can be added to the mixture to artificially lower that water-to-concrete ratio,” Burnham said. “This will allow a  denser mixture to be more easily placed.”

The city of Centerville plans to tear up its colored concrete. This photo shows early joint deterioration.
The city of Centerville plans to tear up its colored concrete. This photo shows early joint deterioration.
Color in vogue

Although there was a spate of colored concrete construction in Ramsey County in the late 1990s, it has only come into fashion in the rest of the state within the last five to six years, according to Burnham.

“You go to almost any community and they’re installing it — on their sidewalk and medians and also crosswalks,” said Burnham, who coordinated the research study.

Because of the added expense, cities may be very disappointed in the results.

The city of Stillwater, which installed a colored concrete panel crosswalk on its main street just two years ago (see top photo), is already experiencing cracking and deterioration in several panels.

Possible remedies

Although reducing the porosity of the colored concrete mixture should help,  it won’t solve everything.

Another issue is the curing. The typical white curing product can’t be applied like it is with standard concrete, so curing the colored panels is more challenging, Burnham explained.

There are possible remedies, however, to assist with the curing, such as wet burlap or curing blankets.

Adding complexity to the issue are the new deicing chemicals on the market, which are also impacting regular road materials.

Several test samples showed evidence of chemical attack of the cement paste and fine aggregates, as well as an alkali-silica reaction, which can cause cracking or spalling and isn’t normally seen in regular concrete.

“Is there anything unique with the coloring that would accelerate the observed chemical reactions? We didn’t feel we had enough samples and knowledge at this point to conclusively say,” Burnham said.

Different construction techniques could go a long way toward increasing the livelihood of colored concrete; however, it could take several years of observation to determine if other methods work.

MnROAD is considering adding colored concrete panels to its facility for testing.

Until more questions are answered, MnDOT researchers are recommending repair techniques and alternative streetscaping ideas to cities, such concrete stains, pavers or colored high friction surface treatments.

In addition to sharing the findings with cities and counties, Burnham wants to educate contractors.

“We hope this research is a wake-up call for the colored concrete industry too because we don’t want the industry to die in Minnesota,” he said. “If it can work, we want cities and counties to be able to use it.”

*Editor’s Note: This story was updated 09/04/2014 to specify that this research project was funded entirely by the Local Road Research Board, and that MnDOT conducted the research.

Related Resources
  • Investigation and Assessment of Colored Concrete Pavement — Final Report (PDF, 20 MB, 368 pages); Technical Summary (forthcoming)
Materials and Construction, research

Program offers funding for “homegrown” road maintenance ideas

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Attention Minnesota road maintenance staff:

Have you ever dreamed that all of your tinkering, fussing, and fiddling in the shop and on the road could help improve every road in Minnesota? Do you need funding to improve your sign maintenance and installation process? Or maybe you’ve come up with an idea for a new tool for controlling roadside vegetation or a design for a more effective work-zone safety product. Whatever it is, the Local Operational Research Assistance (OPERA) Program wants to hear about it.

Funding for 2015 OPERA projects is now available, and it’s easy to submit a proposal. Simply fill out the brief proposal application (50 KB DOC) and submit it via e-mail to Mindy Carlson at Minnesota LTAP. There isn’t a deadline to submit your proposal, but FY15 funds are limited and they often go quickly.

The maximum funding per project is $10,000, and local agencies are welcome to submit more than one proposal.

Project Guidelines

Your proposed research project should focus on the timely development of relevant ideas or methods that improve transportation or maintenance operations. Our goal is to collect and disseminate homegrown, innovative solutions to the everyday challenges our transportation workforce faces on the job. Counties, cities, and townships, this is your opportunity to encourage your maintenance staff to become actively involved in researching and testing their ideas.

To see what other local agencies have done with OPERA funding, check out our fact sheets and annual reports, or watch these videos highlighting previous OPERA projects:

Program Sponsors

The Local OPERA Program is funded by the Minnesota Local Road Research Board and administered by the Minnesota Local Technical Assistance Program.