Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – The testing of materials used in road and bridge construction is critical. And now the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) has a new facility with which to do that.

IDOT’s Materials Testing and Research Center has moved from First and Ash in downtown Springfield, to a new $63 million facility on the Hanley Building campus on South Dirksen.  A ribbon-cutting was held for the new building Wednesday.

“It is hard to overstate how important this lab is to IDOT in Illinois.  What happens inside here is everything that we have to do with roads and bridges,” said Gia Biagi, IDOT secretary.  “We invest about $1.5 billion every year in materials alone, so we’ve got to get it right.  It’s got to be high quality.  It’s got to be durable.  This is where we make sure it happens for asphalt and stone, and gravel and sand, and soil, and steel, and structural fasteners.”

The hope, officials say, is that with a good testing process, a road or bridge will last up to 20 years before repairs need to be made.

“This facility is responsible for approving all of the materials used in highway construction throughout the state,” said Brian Pfeifer, IDOT engineer of materials.  “We get samples in from across the state — a variety of samples — asphalt, concrete, component materials, and basically make sure that they’re in an acceptable quality, and work with our contractors and material suppliers, to make sure they meet the needs of the traveling public.”

The materials go through testing ranging from durability, to how well they hold in in cold and hot

extreme weather conditions, said Pfeiffer.

It’s believed that every state has materials testing labs similar to that of IDOT.

The First and Ash facility was aging, Biagi said, and was starting to become too small.