Approximately 57 miles of H.E. Bailey Turnpike pavement have been rehabilitated in the past five years in three contracts totaling about $32 million that have featured dowel bar retrofit projects.
In those projects, a series of grooves were cut into the concrete paving, a metal bar was placed into each groove and covered with concrete, and then a diamond grinder smoothed the driving surface.
A dowel bar retrofit restores load transfer across joints and cracks by installing metal dowel bars that link the adjoining slabs. “By linking slabs, the traffic load is shared, preventing differential vertical movement of the slabs at the joints and cracks,” which in turn eliminates “the formation of faults or step-offs,” explained Interstate Improvement, a contractor on one of the H.E. Bailey jobs.
“It is these faults that cause the rough ride and wheel slap that is sensed when traveling on a concrete roadway that has lost its ability to transfer load from one panel to the next,” the Minnesota company said.
The first section of the Bailey that was improved was nearly 24 miles of the toll road between milepost 78 south of Chickasha (in the vicinity of the state Highway 19 junction that leads to Lindsay) and milepost 101.6 (about a mile north of the SH-9 junction leading to Norman). That job started in late 2019 or early 2020.
The next pavement rehab project was a 16-mile section of the Bailey between mile marker 62 north of Elgin and mile marker 78 just south of Chickasha, where the previous pavement rehab project ended.
The third project was rehabilitation of a 13-mile section of pavement in Comanche County between state Highway 49 (mile marker 45), the Medicine Park exit north of Fort Sill, and Whitefield Road (mm 62) east of Fletcher. That job started in the summer of 2023 and was completed earlier this year.
The dowel bar retrofit and diamond grinding program “certainly worked,” Gene Love of Lawton, a Turnpike Authority member for 13.5 years, said recently. “When it was originally discussed, it was expected to extend the life of the pavement by eight to 10 years. Currently it’s going on 12 years.”
Besides the pavement rehabilitation program, several miles of crumbling shoulders were rebuilt and old guardrails were replaced on the turnpike this year in two contracts totaling $17.5 million. Two more shoulder and guardrail reconstruction contracts on the Bailey are scheduled to be awarded next February.
All of the improvements have been financed from tolls collected on the state turnpike system.
The H.E. Bailey – which extends from Newcastle in south Oklahoma City to US-70 near Randlett a few miles north of the Red River – opened to traffic 60 years ago, in 1964.