Project Overview
Six Miles, One Consistent Model
A transportation design firm needed survey-grade existing conditions for a planned widening: full corridor topography, every right-of-way monument recovered and tied, drainage structures with inverts, and surface evidence of utilities across six miles of mixed suburban and rural roadway.
Cairnstone ran the corridor in segments off a single GPS-derived control backbone, so the design team received one seamless surface — not six stitched ones.
Challenge
Live Traffic, Fragmented Records
Right-of-way plans spanned five decades with gaps at every interchange, and all fieldwork ran beside live traffic. We worked with traffic control in off-peak windows and rebuilt the ROW line from plans, monuments, and occupation evidence segment by segment.
Approach
Control First, Segments Second
A primary control traverse closed the full six miles before any topo began. Crews then mapped outward from control in half-mile segments, each checked back before moving on — keeping the final surface within tolerance end to end.
Deliverables
What the Design Team Received
- Continuous corridor surface with one-foot contours and breaklines.
- Right-of-way resolution map with recovered monuments and gaps flagged.
- Drainage inventory: 80+ structures with rims, inverts, sizes, and materials.
- Layered CAD, surface model, and control report compatible with the DOT standard.
Outcome
The design team advanced to 30% plans without a single survey RFI round — the ROW map resolved two takings questions early, and the seamless surface let grading quantities come straight from the model.
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Designing a corridor, road, or utility?
One control network, one seamless surface, zero survey RFIs.