Urgent, need reference material

In this morning's email:  "..., I would like you to provide to me by noon today examples of state highway layouts (or county highway layouts) that were scaled in the fashion you describe in your email below.  Please provide the record plans along with the scaled plans that superseded the previous layout."

The description from my email, yesterday, regarding the method of evaluating the boundaries & baselines of the exisiting highway layouts:  "The Route 2 main baselines from 1933 were transformed with the layout lines to best-fit the found bounds.  There is a small scaling applied to the record layout plan dimensions as part of the best-fit calculation (1.00000665682234 or + 0.0007 / 100), therefore, the location sideline and baseline lengths and radii are scaled to reflect the current set of measurements.  The 1933 stationing in US Survey Feet can be converted to meters by multiplying together the plan transformation scale, the standard US Foot to meter conversion (12/39.37), and the 1933 station value.  I will include a note on the final layout plans to explain this.  The record baseline stationing, lengths and radii can have notation added on the plans to show the record dimensions, i.e. (22+86.37 ON 1933 BASELINE)."

In my email I forgot to add, "The existing highway layout lines were further adjusted to hold the corners at found stone and concrete bounds.  Where possible, unmonumented corners on the layouts were held by bearing-bearing intersection from the found bounds.  In areas where bounds were too scarce, the best-fit corner calculation was held."  But these lines are not the crux of the problem.  The problem is that MassDOT wants us to hold the record distances from 1933, and show references to the ORIGINAL MONUMENTS where they are "off" the boundary corners (virtually all 24 locations).

If anyone can provide examples to me of record highway layout plans that have been superceded or updated by later highway layout plans showing scaled distances, I would be eternally grateful.

My email address is:  plothian@greenintl.com

I would contact Dennis Drum and ask!!

I sent Dennis an email this morning, asking for the same information.  He's a busy man, I haven't heard back, yet.

Dennis has a pretty good explanation in his 'Transform for Windows" program under the help key and Transform and the Law.   His website may carry additional information.   Maybe you could suggest the link for the client.

I think that you're right, hold the bounds, and make the adjustments.

We think alike, Don.  I sent the sections "Scaling and the Law" and "Breaking the Record" from the Advanced Topics in the Transform Help document to the client yesterday.  I think this is the motive behind the request for "real life" examples.  He wants to see if and how distance scaling is applied to highway layouts in other jurisdictions.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Peter,
 
In all the surveying, I did for District 3 (Worcester) I always held the bounds and fit the base line. Therefore, I think you are right to do so.
 
I recently interviewed with Dennis Drumm about my work with Mass DOT before taking the Jurisdictional Examination for the Commonwealth and I explained that was my method. I found monuments and fit the base line accordingly. He agreed on that method.
 
Unless the Mass DOT made a Land Court plan of the Right of Way there is no other option than to recover the monuments of the layout and to determine the Right of Way the same as with any boundary.
 
Paul
 

Paul,

This is exactly what I am looking for.  Do you have any final plans of record that you can point me towards that would show this method in action?

Pete

Peter,
 
I worked in construction for District 3 of Mass DOT (then Mass Highway) so we did not record any plans. The design plans for highways and bridges showed what was called the “construction base line” which was an alignment based on the centerline of the pavement. Since the original construction of these highways and bridges followed the historic surveyed base line, the construction base line was often approximately coincident to the historic base line.
 
I wondered and often asked why then was the historic base line not followed for the re-construction. I have examples of how I used the construction base line to recover the original monuments of the layout mostly not shown in the construction documents.  I usually proceeded to fit the base line of construction to the monuments I found anyway and adjusted accordingly to be sure grading would not result in encroachment.
 
The layouts I researched were a very good fit to the monuments and I do not think anyone would have noticed how the construction base line was different. I made it my responsibility out of respect for the previous survey work to be sure that I honored the monuments. However, we never recorded any plans since my responsibility was to monitor the construction.
 
Any Right of Way layout is also a property line. I made this clear to Dennis Drumm in my report of my experience for the Jurisdictional Examination.  Although I do not have any examples of record plans, I do have my report. CAD drawings and notes from the work I did for Mass DOT. You are welcome to use the material if you think it will help your case.
 
Paul

Peter,

Perhaps you should ask for an advisory ruling.

Paul

In addition to the layout plans on the Mass DOT website, there usually are field books in the Distict offices, generally filed by town/city. If the right of way is old, say before 1925-30, the monuments are generallt granite with the center of the back edge being the mark. The baseline measurememnts from early layouts are usually not too great, but in the '30s a lot of them were remeasured. Only the field books show the newer measurements, not the layout plans. Also, the layout plan baselines were never changed to reflect later remeasurements.

I traverse and locate as many of the monuments as can be recovered, both sides of the roadway. Then I fit a trial baseline between the monuments and tweak where necessary to get a best fit, ignoring stationing but closely splitting the monuments. This generally reveals positional errors of  monuments that have moved, and gives reasonable positions for those missing. While the monuments represent the right of way lines, the takings are generally of specific width like 60.00', 150.00' etc. In most cases you will find the monuments to fit closely to the baseline offsets. Once I get a best fit baseline, I apply the offsets to re-establish the right of way lines as property lines.

As an example, I traversed about three miles of Rte. 138, laid out in the teens. About 50% of the original monuments were missing (I dug pits, some deeper than six feet, to make sure they were missing). Most of the ones I found were very close to the offsets called (60 foot layout), usually within less than a tenth. I checked stationing starting at the beginning of the layout (Town Line) and it varied closely proportional to the distance along the layout. Over the three miles it was off a total of about 3.50 feet, but the monuments closely fit when the proportioning was applied.

Newer layouts are usually very close to the plan stationing if you can find the monuments.

Best regards,

Roger