The Utah Department of Transportation “UDOT” did something this rarely seen this weekend that had people cheering and smiling, was on-time, made sense, and on budget. This new method is called Accelerated Bridge Construction. They worked with contractors Ralph L. Wadsworth “WADSCO” and Michael Baker Corp. and the Dutch heavy lifting company Mammoet to replace a major freeway overpass bridge in a weekend. This ABC method was used instead of shutting the freeway down for many months like what is typically done. While this practice has been done in Europe it is new to the U.S. I stopped by the jobsite today to check it out for myself and take some pictures since I live in Salt Lake City. Low and behold it appears that we may have a new spectator sport that is more exiting that tennis or golf and that is bridge moving. There were literally hundreds or thousands of people watching the snail paced relocation of the new bridge span some with special areas like VIP boxes front row with a catered meal. Some had said they were missing a football game to see this. Perhaps in the future we could have head to head competitive bridge replacement competitions. There was even one photographer that had scaled a 20 foot pine tree to sit at the top of it for some good photos. It was truly surreal and perhaps we just don’t get too much excitement here in Salt Lake City Utah except on the world famous ski slopes and awesome red rock desert.
The old bridge section was moved out and the new section drove in on the freeway using a large self propelled modular transporter “SPTF” by Mammoet and controlled remotely. The SPTF has many sets of wheels and controls to move large structures. I had actually used one of these about 12 years ago when constructing some California bridge sections and military watercraft in Oregon. Yes I used to work in the “real design world” with real large steel projects including large bridges. 😉
I posted some photos to my Flickr gallery of this exciting new sport in which there is a kickoff and a touchdown and hopefully no fumbles.
4500 South Rapid Bridge Replacement Project Animation
Quote “These activities have been designated by the Federal Highway Administration as a Showcase Event with national significance, and the public is invited to attend.”
Wow, and no fireworks or marching bands in attendance? 😉
Other articles:
- 4500 South Bridge Replacement Fact Sheet
- UDOT Moves New Bridge into Place
- Bridge Replacement to Impact Traffic Through Weekend
- New Technology Used To Move I-215 Bridge Seamlessly Into Place
Congratulations to all involved. Hopefully this limited closure and rapid replacement process is adopted by other highway departments to limit construction closing impacts and costs of other freeway bridge replacement projects.
Shaan
