Concrete Barrier Inc., Mukilteo, Wash. earned a $700,000 incentive bonus from the Washington State Dept. of Transportation for finishing a 19-day paving and expansion-joint replacement project through downtown Seattle in just 12 days. The company bid $11,917,111 on the project, which started Aug. 10 and ended Aug. 25. The company was credited for weather-related delays. The contractor used polyester concrete, with a set-up time of three to five hours, said Massay Shiferaw, WashDOT project manager. The contractor also saved time by changing the method used to remove the expansion joints and adding crew members. “At first they planned to grind the 40-year-old expansion joints down, but that was taking five hours per joint,” says Shiferaw. “They switched to cutting them with a torch and sending a crew ahead to start the prep work.” The project started in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5, a stretch of road traveled by 120,000 cars daily. WashDOT computer modeling showed possible 35-mile-long traffic backups, but a seven-month-long public outreach effort, encouraging the use of alterative routes, shortened that to only a few miles.