These culverts allow water to flow through to help prevent flooding.

The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) is undertaking a large project to replace 46 aging culverts along MD 77 (Foxville Road) in Frederick County.

Beginning early in September a portion of the roadway was closed and detoured to expediate work on the culvert replacements. Work on the extensive project is expected to be complete in the summer of 2020.

The project will replace 46 aging culverts that are under the roadway. These culverts allow water to flow through to help prevent flooding. In order to replace the culverts, the contractor is required to excavate part of the roadway, remove the existing pipe and install a new one.

In addition to replacing the culverts, crews will clean existing drainpipes and inlets. Crews also will pave and restripe the road.

According to Charlie Gischlar, media relations manager, MDOT SHA's contractor, Highway & Safety Services Inc. of Gaithersburg, is using detour signs, barrels and cones to guide motorists through the work zone. Approximately 3,900 vehicles use this section of Foxville Road each day, so motorists are encouraged to allow extra commuting time during the project.

"MDOT SHA works hard to maintain safe traffic mobility in work zones for our crews as well as our contractor," Gischlar said.

By July, the contractor had finished most of the saw cutting of the pipe culvert crossings on MD 77 along with tree removal. Crews had completed 10 pipe culvert crossings and one box culvert since work began in May.

"Some of the challenges on this massive project are the scheduling and coordination of daytime work and nightly closures as all parties [crews and park services] have to be notified," Gischlar said. "Another challenge is with the roadway on MD 77 being very narrow to get pipe culvert crossings completed timely, as is ensuring that all of the detour signs get turned and covered after every nightly closure and that the road is opened to traffic on time each day."

Subcontractors for the project include BWE Construction & Engineering Inc., for pipe, backfilling, inlet work and some box culverts; Custom Touch Tree Services Inc., for tree removal; and Caded Consulting Corporation, for layout survey work.

The current equipment list includes a John Deere 50G excavator, a Bobcat T590 skid loader, light plants (mobile lights), dump trucks for hauling material, a Bomag roller, pickup trucks, a hand concrete sawcutter and a Caterpillar M318 excavator.

Local access is being maintained, and motorists are detoured using MD 77 to U.S. 15 (Catoctin Mountain Highway) to MD 550 (Sabillasville Road) to Foxville Deerfield Road and back to MD 77.

After Sept. 30, MD 77 will reopen to travel in both directions with flagging operations weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and occasional overnight work from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.

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