Six years have passed since reconstruction began, but State Roads 826 (Palmetto Expressway) and 836 (Dolphin Expressway) in south Florida are nearing completion. Scheduled to wrap up this fall, the $580 million project has been a major undertaking in south Florida. In 2009, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) partnered with the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) to develop the project, with the ultimate goal of alleviating congestion on the interchange.
This complete design-build project included widening along both the Palmetto and Dolphin expressways, the construction of a four-level interchange and reconstruction modifications of the Flagler Street/SR 826 and Milam Dairy Road/NW 72nd Ave./SR 836 interchanges. One of the most crucial phases of the project included the construction of more than 45 bridges within the interchange, providing motorists direct access to their designated exit without having to use the expressway. While there was construction on 45 of the bridges, 21 required demolition.
FDOT and MDX turned to Maytin Engineering for the demolition of 17 concrete girder bridges, four steel girder bridges, along with 2 mi. (3.2 km) of barrier wall demolition and removal. Located in Hialeah Garden, Fla., Maytin Engineering is a small corporation who caters to the demolition aspect of public works projects. The 13-year-old company wasn’t always involved in public works projects, rather it started out working in the residential and private work realms before transitioning over to larger scaled jobs in the public sector.
Maytin Equipment Corp. is a demolition contracting company, which was founded by Rolando Maytin Sr., back in 1977. Before he started the business, Rolando Sr. drove around to different construction sites picking up debris so he could earn enough money to start his own company. Once he had the money, Rolando Sr. purchased a dump truck as well as a 1972 John Deere 544 front-end wheel loader, which he still owns to this day. Eventually he hired his son, Rolando Maytin Jr., full-time. After working for the better part of a decade at Maytin Equipment, Rolando Jr. decided to follow in his father’s footsteps establishing Maytin Engineering. Later, Rolando and his son decided to merge, bringing the separate companies under one umbrella of both a demolition contracting company as well as a consulting and engineering service provider.
Maytin Engineering started demolishing its share of the 21 bridges back in 2010 before hitting a snag with the company’s breakers, which started breaking down on the job, halting further progress. They decided to talk to their dealer, Maya Enterprises to find a solution.
“Rolando [Jr.] came to me because he was having some issues with the old hammers he was using,” said James Katsoulos, vice president of Maya Enterprises. “They kept breaking on him, so I finally told him that it was time to get a new breaker. It took some legwork because we wanted to find the right hammer to give Rolando the best bang for his buck and one that had a quick delivery time. With it being in stock and the right price, he decided on the Chicago Pneumatic RX22 breaker.”
The RX22 is the biggest hitter offered in the Chicago Pneumatic medium classified breakers, which includes a light, medium and heavy class. As is custom with the other CP breakers, the RX22 features a recoil absorbing concept and a polyurethane insulated breaker box system making them one of the most silent breakers on the market, according to the manufacturer.
The RX22 is in the 17 to 28-ton (15.4 to 25.4 t) carrier class and has an impact rate of 520-680 blows per minute and hits at a powerful 3,500 ft-lbs.
“I am amazed with the speed at which it impacts, the speed that it hammers is just incredible,” said Rolando Maytin Jr. “It has increased our efficiency on the 826/836 job by about 20 percent since we replaced our old breakers. We are also really impressed with the auto lube system, which saves time by not needing to grease the tool as often.”
The auto lube system automatically greases the tool bushings, eliminating the need to have an operator manually grease the bushings during the day. This greatly extends the life of the bushings with CP high temp 2012-degree chisel paste that acts as a ball bearing between the bushing and tool surface by keeping the impact heat off the direct contact of the tool and bushing.
During the Palmetto and Dolphin Expressway bridge demolition job, Maytin Engineering had on-hand at any given time six excavators, a 220-ton (199 t) crane, a crusher and rotating pulverizers.
Any highly expensed and major public works plan comes with it’s own unique set of challenges, including a high volume of traffic. On a daily basis, the SR 826 and SR 836 Interchange see over 400,000 motorists on average. With 21 bridges in need of demolishing along with construction on 24 others, MDX and FDOT created another challenge, albeit a necessary one, by making the project a joint venture, consisting of three large roadway contractors with their own sections to work on.
“Scheduling the needs for bridge demolition for each contractor, while not impacting the critical path was a challenge,” said Maytin Jr. “The job site was widely spread apart across miles of interstate, which made mobilizing with large equipment more than 40 times pretty tedious for us. We have a great team here though, who did a fantastic job of working with each other and moving each project forward.”
Like any major interstate construction project, the SR 826 and SR 836 job caused travelers many inconveniences over the past six years with lane closures and detours, but the solution was a strong one. The plan created more exits for drivers and already has noticeably alleviated a lot of the congestion on the interchange. Despite the headaches, it is one that south Floridians will be happy about for years to come, as the project gets closer to being complete.
Maytin Engineering is in the home stretch of the SR 826 and SR 836 project with only four of the original 21 bridges left, which it plans to finish by the end of the year. The company continues to grow and is in high demand throughout the Miami area. With the business doing well, the Maytin’s recently announced that they are embarking on a new venture with Maytin Recycling Co., for which they recently broke ground on a four-acre facility in Miami. The new company will handle construction and demolition debris for the South Florida construction community. The RX22 has impressed them so much that they envision expanding on their Chicago Pneumatic products with the new recycling branch of their company. With a storied past, that with time has only gotten better, the future for the Maytin’s certainly appears to be bright in the Sunshine State.
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