The City of Muskego, Wisconsin, immediately felt the positive impact of constructing Moorland Road in 2002. But 13 years later, the pavement of the one-mile connector road from Woods Road to Janesville Road began showing signs of extensive rutting, cracking, and settling, causing drivers to experience a rough and unsafe ride, especially when rain and snowmelt caused water to pond. Wanting to address these conditions, as well as the substandard roadway geometry and traffic operations, the suburb of Milwaukee turned to Kapur for solutions.
Soil borings revealed organics and topsoil in the upper subgrade, which severely impacted the pavement's stability and caused drainage issues within the body of the roadway itself. Not to mention, the basecourse thickness was 4 inches less than the planned depth of 12 inches in several locations, and the original pavement design accounted for 1% trucks when a 2015 traffic count showed 11.4% trucks.
Looking for the most economical and sustainable option, Kapur responded by designing a reconstruction with 7 inches of HMA pavement over 14 inches of crushed aggregate base over 16 inches of breaker run, as well as proposing an urban typical section, which consisted of 11-foot driving lanes, a 4-foot bike lane, and 18-inch curb and gutter. At select locations, stormwater was conveyed via concrete surface drains and swales behind the curb and gutter.
When it came to other existing elements, an 8-foot-wide asphalt walking path was preserved as much as possible and replaced where intersections widened, and an existing four-way stop-controlled intersection on Woods Road was replaced with a modern single-lane roundabout – all in just 35 days in order to open the roadway before the start of the school year.
Flash forward to today, and Moorland Road is back to being an asset to the fifth-largest community in Waukesha County. The roundabout has allowed for a better flow of traffic, and the colorized pavement, aesthetics, and landscaping have created a user-friendly corridor for pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists.
And for our efforts, the project was nominated as a 2019 Best Local Program Project by the WisDOT SE Region.
