June 21, 2024
By Lane Kimble
MADISON, Wis. — The size, speed, and sound of jets taking off and landing kind of redefines the idea of work zone “traffic control,” but Bradley Buechel is getting used to it.
“If you can imagine the loudest noise you’ve heard, you can probably double it,” Buechel told WTBA.
The Michels Road and Stone Project Manager has worked on Austin Straubel Airport in Green Bay and Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee in his young career, but this project at Dane County Regional in Madison is a little different.
“It’s a very busy airport. Getting to see planes take off and land constantly, all day long, it adds a different perspective to the work.”
Buechel showed WTBA around Michels’ taxiway and hold bay repaving at an airport that served 2.1 million passengers in 2023 and is also home to the 115th Fighter Wing’s Air National Guard base. Crews are tearing up 30-year-old concrete – damaged from years of snow removal and wear and tear – while preserving the underlying asphalt as best they can. Then, 16 inches of fresh concrete goes over the top.
“When you look at it on paper, it looks like 50,000 square-yards, but when you actually step foot out here at the airport, it’s a significant amount of concrete,” Buechel said.
At 90 feet wide and several thousand feet long, the taxiway pavement takes about five paving passes and needs to be nearly twice as thick as a highway to support 100,000-pound planes.
DCRA Communications Director Michael Riechers told WTBA the airport’s three runways allow them to shift takeoffs and landings around the crews’ work, which is also overseen closely by FAA inspectors.
“On top of the engineering staff, there are always people out here kind of double checking, triple checking, making sure we are following everything we need to,” Buechel said.
WTBA asked if that makes him nervous or adds pressure.
“Not really,” Buechel said, after pausing to think. “Because I know we’re doing it right.”
The project should be finished in late-August or early September, weather permitting.
