I-271, I-480 Lane Addition, Cuyahoga and Summit County – ODOT District 12

DLZ recently completed the detailed design of the I-271 Lane Addition Project for ODOT District 12. This 6-mile long project also includes the interstate overlap of I-480. The design process started with a comprehensive study of four (4) alternates to improve safety as three Top ODOT Hot Crash Spots and two Top Congestion Spots are located along this stretch. The completed project increases the safety of this roadway section by reducing the number of crashes and decreasing the degree of congestion throughout the corridor.

The DLZ Team completed the environmental tasks required, including submitting a Categorical Exclusion (CE) Level 4 document (required due to work on interstates and FHWA’s involvement). From the team’s preliminary study, ODOT chose an “interstate split” alternate as their preferred. On the southern section of the project, the I-271 and I-480 traffic streams separate from south of the Cuyahoga/Summit County line north to Tinker’s Creek Bridge. I-271 travels on new lanes within the existing median while I-480 traffic remains on the existing alignment. From the Bridge north to Rockside Road, we added one to two lanes on the existing alignment’s median side. All existing pavement is being replaced, full depth.

The detailed project design:

• 6 miles of 6- to 10-lane interstate pavement
• Reconfiguration of the I-271/I-480 Southern System Interchange
• Contra-flow maintenance of traffic approach
• 2 new bridges:
  • 154’ long, 65° skew, single-span steel girder bridge
  • 145’ long 3-span continuous steel beam bridge
• Rehabilitation of the twin I-271 bridges over Tinkers Creek (CUY-271-0231 L&R)
• Superstructure replacement and widening of
  • twin I-271 mainline bridges over Aurora Road (CUY-271-0443 L&R)
  • twin NSRR (CUY-271-0474 L&R) and twin Miles Road (CUY-271-0519 L&R)
• 3 retaining walls, including
  • soil-nailed wall under an existing bridge
  • soldier pile wall
  • cantilever wall
• 5 noise barriers as a result of the public involvement process
• Significant areas of unstable/unsuitable soils remedied with undercut and side slope stabilization, as well as intelligent profiles.

DLZ successfully overcame several geometric and design complications to deliver this project within an aggressive schedule. The separation of interstate I-271 and I-480 creates the highway segments within the project containing four parallel roadway pavement sections. Each pavement section has independent line/grade/typical and superelevation, which needed to be designed in an iterative process in-sync with the stormwater management system. Maintenance of traffic and minimizing the impact of construction on the 141,000 vehicles (ADT) that drive the corridor daily was a significant factor considered during the preliminary and final design phases.  As such, we used multiple MOT schemes to lessen public impact while providing the contractor with large work areas to accelerate his construction schedule potentially.