Closing roads during construction enhances safety and efficiency

Public Roads, March-April, 2004

FHWA recently published a brochure on full road closure, an approach to roadway construction that entails closing one or both directions of a road and detouring traffic. Shorter Duration, Safer Work Zones, More Satisfied Travelers: Successful Applications of Full Road Closure in Work Zones (FHWA-OP-03-086) is the first product of a study that assessed six field applications that used the approach. Full road closure eliminates worker-traffic interaction and provides workers access to the entire roadway section during construction, potentially improving efficiency and safety and reducing the duration of work.

The brochure provides several case studies detailing significant benefits garnered from projects that used full road closure. Near Detroit, MI, for example, closing the Lodge Freeway during construction reduced project duration by 71 percent. In Portland, OR, the Oregon DOT used two full closures (one direction at a time) to complete a project within 10 days, instead of 32 nights of work using partial closure, and reduced the overall cost of the project by $100,000. Oregon DOT engineers estimate that they could have cut the total project cost of $2.5 million in half if they had specified the use of full closure in the original contract.

The Ohio DOT is using full closure to rehabilitate a major route through downtown Columbus and expects to save up to $10 million by completion. "Under the appropriate conditions," says Gordon Proctor, director of the Ohio DOT, "a full closure can be an effective way to complete projects faster and improve safety for highway workers and motorists."

For more information, visit http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/wz/docs/Full Closure_BRO-final.pdf.