North Dakota State Affiliate Shares Insight on Partnering with NRMCA on Pave Ahead Projects

Editor's Note: This item was written by Art Thompson, executive director of The North Dakota Ready Mix & Concrete Products Association in connection with a recent Pave Ahead project coordinated with NRMCA Senior Director, Local Paving, Ken Justice.

If you’ve attended one of our association’s workshops in the past few years, you have no doubt heard about the free, concrete pavement design assistance program developed by the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. While we have worked on several design reviews over the past few seasons, mostly parking lots, roundabouts, municipal streets and concrete overlays, we haven’t always shared how the program works. We recently had a successful project in Parshall, ND, that chose concrete over asphalt because of the collaboration of several people involved in the project.

I received a call from a quality control manager from one of our members who told me the City of Parshall had a road project coming up and the local leaders wanted a concrete alternate to be added to the bid. I contacted the engineer of record and offered our assistance. After receiving information from the geotechnical report, the site layout, vehicle traffic information and projected growth rates, I shared the information with Ken Justice, P.E. from the Pave Ahead team. Ken is assigned to North Dakota and knows our state very well. Ken went to work on a comparable concrete design with a jointing plan and provided some life cycle cost evaluations. The information from Ken was shared with the engineer of record who used the design recommendations as his guidance for the concrete alternate.

The project bid in early May. When bids came in, the concrete alternate came in at approximately $1.2 million, only about $150,000 more than the original asphalt design. The City of Parshall decided to go with the concrete alternate because it will be less expensive over its service life than asphalt. This is exactly why this program was created and it provided a strong design that will last for years to come with minimal maintenance. Congrats to all who helped move this project forward for the good guys.

For more information, contact Art Thompson at art.NDConcrete@gmail.com or Ken Justice at kjustice@nrmca.org.