Woodrow
Wilson Bridge Beats Obstacles As it Becomes Beltway Savior
1/31/2005
...upriver. Besides good looks, the
new crossing had to provide enough capacity and keep maintenance
costs to a minimum. "Of course there are a lot of difficulties
in achieving that," says Shafer. Arches were ruled out
because of soft soils and the presence of a bascule. Instead,
Parsons turned to V-shaped piers that aim to mimic arches.
Solid.
Long-line precasting (top) is producing piers for Maryland
and Virginia approaches.
On the Maryland and Virginia approaches,
the concrete piers are pre-cast and are "very difficult
to build," says Michael D. Bonin, area bridge engineer
for PCC and URS. For one thing, heights vary, from about 39
ft to slightly more than 100 ft. Moreover, they have "a
very complex shape," Bonin says. The V’s have reveals
and curve and flare out as they rise.
"It’s all different geometry,"
says Lyell Tripp, Maryland approach project director for Edward
Kraemer & Sons Inc., Plain,Wis., which is teamed with
American Bridge, Coraopolis, Pa., and Trumbull Corp., West
Mifflin, Pa. "It’s hard to control geometry...when
everything’s changing all the time," Bonin adds.
On both approaches, the unusual
shape prompted contractors to use long-line precasting, in
which the formwork is all in place to make an entire leg of
a V.
The Virginia approach precast operation
is situated beneath the new southern bridge, where space is
limited and access is tight, says Bob McTavish, area manager
for Granite Construction, Watsonville, Calif., which is teamed
with Corman Construction Inc., Annapolis Junction, Md., on
that approach contract. McTavish expects to finish his part
of the new southern bridge ahead of schedule. But on the new
northern bridge, "the amount of work we’ve got to
do and the amount of time will be much tougher," he says.
One factor is the limited access until the old bridge is demolished.
The bascule section also has the
V-piers, but they are cast in place, using a series of incremental
concrete pours. The reason is that the bascule legs have to
be much more muscular than their neighbors because they must
support the eight bascule "leaves," which weigh
between 1,900 and 2,200 tons each. Each bascule pier therefore
has three Vs, while the approach piers each have two. In section,
each of the four walls of the bascule’s hollow legs is
at least 2 ft thick, compared with 1 ft, 3 in. on the approach
pier legs.
Brawny.
Cast-in-place bascule piers are larger and more
numerous than others in order to support heavy leaves.
Officials with the bascule segment’s
team, American Bridge and Kraemer, say an important element
in their job is the custom-built steel falsework that they
developed with Janssen & Spaans Engineering Inc., Indianapolis.
Each pier face has three falsework sections, about 70 ft tall
and 30 ft wide. The sections are movable and reusable. Ken
Hirschmugl, Kraemer’s bascule project official, says
the falsework was 80% designed on the November 2002 bid day,
"because that was the real trick to understanding how
you would build this thing." Click
here to view drawing>>
Having multiple contractors for
the superstructure saved the project, but it complicated management.
"The tradeoff for the affordable bid is an increase in
owner risk for managing the interfaces," says Jim Ruddell,
PB vice president and PCC construction manager.
Good coordination is imperative
because of the many interchange contracts and benchmark dates
to hit. Fuhrman, a former Army major general and Corps of
Engineers’ civil works director, likens the project to
organizing for combat. Part of that battle plan includes periodic
"corridor coordination meetings" for contractors,
says Ruddell.
An extensive partnering program
is another important element, officials say. It undoubtedly
laid the groundwork for the steel pact, Pedersen says. "You
have to have a genuine partnering process in place so trust
has been built to resolve problems as quickly as possible,"
he says.
So far, project officials have
met bidding, foundation and steel problems. But they are vigilant.
Says Fuhrman: "Who knows what it might be tomorrow?"
Both Sides Have
Novel Approaches and Interchanges of Ideas By Aileen Cho
Maryland
interchanges include wick drains, new barriers and
bridges and link to riverside development. (Photo
by Michael goodman for ENR)
The new bascule
bridge may be the heart of the Wilson Bridge reconstruction,
but major interchanges on both sides of the river constitute
the major arteries. Rebuilding them on unstable soils
in one of the nation’s busiest corridors is like
performing multiple angioplasties, with methods both
new and tried-and-true.
Maryland and Virginia approach
and interchange contracts are geared to tie into a May
2006 switchover of traffic from the existing Woodrow
Wilson Bridge to the new bridge outer loop lanes. The
outer loop local lanes will carry interim traffic. The
future outer loop express lanes temporarily will serve
inner loop traffic going in the opposite direction for
about 2 years. In summer 2008, traffic will switch over
from the outer loop lanes to the new inner loop lanes.
James Brookshire III now
is managing Virginia’s Route 1 interchange at the
Beltway for the Virginia Beach-based joint venture Tidewater/Skanska’s
$146-million contract. He is a veteran of the foundations
contract, which included suspended cofferdams, 6,000-cu-yd
pours and an underwater hydraulic hammer from Norway.
The project still is in the
initial stages, with 40-ft-deep piles driven into soft
soils, capped and covered with fill. Overhead power
lines are buried to allow for piledriving. Since the
lines travel beneath Route I, "we used jack-and-bore
instead of digging a trench," says Chip Fiore,
Potomac Crossing Consultants’ lead project engineer.
"We dug a pit on either side of the road, hydraulically
jacked a 42-in. steel casing through and augered out
the dirt inside the pipe."
VDOT
project manager Ronaldo "Nick" Nicholson
(left) briefs VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet on
progress. (Photo by Aileen Cho for ENR)
Ronaldo "Nick" Nicholson,
Virginia Dept. of Transportation’s Wilson Bridge
project manager, notes that the Route 1 corridor includes
infrastructure from the 1800s. While installing utility
duct banks, "we found another [unexpected] layer
5 ft deep."
While penalties could reach
up to $80,000 a day for late delivery, the joint venture
also has five milestone incentives and a "no excuse"
bonus for the sixth. "If we complete the interim
milestone 6 five months early, it could be a $5 million
bonus," says Brookshire. Total potential bonuses
could reach $7 million. "The contractor takes the
risk...but we’re willing to prioritize the elements"
that the contractor requests through value engineering
and innovative proposals, says Nicholson.
The other major Virginia
interchange, at Telegraph Road, includes 11 bridges
and $175 million of work. Utility work up to $20 million
will be advertised in March, and up to $90 million worth
of work is expected to begin in 2007.
Currently, the $250 million
of Wilson Bridge-related work under way in Virginia
is on time and on budget with no major claims to date,
says Nickerson. That also includes a $54-million contract
for a six-lane tie-in to the future Wilson Bridge and
a $39-million contract for ramps and flyovers. The work
also includes 7,000 ft of utility microtunneling beneath
I-95, auger-drilled columns injected with concrete,
lightweight geofoam blocks in embankments and a cementitious
flowable fill that achieves stability within six weeks.
Fiore says the geofoam blocks,
which vary in size, will be used on a 100 ft x 200 ft
abutment as a change order due to an unexpected sewer
line. "We needed to make the embankment light enough
to avoid settlement of the sewer line," he says.
Transparent noise walls made
of a light epoxy-coated glass satisfied community aesthetics
while providing anti-graffiti benefits, says Nicholson.
Discovered by VDOT officials in Europe, the glass panels–with
filaments to prevent bird crashes–have been used
in the U.S. only once before, in New Jersey. They are
triple the cost of standard walls.
VDOT will complete all right-of-way
acquisitions this year, another task that required flexible
solutions and negotiations. Those included a $62-million
agreement with the city of Alexandria for VDOT to build
local street improvements and parks in exchange for
the city dropping a lawsuit.
Officials reached another
deal by buying 23.5 acres of land that included 645
apartments–and acting as landlord. Tenants were
successfully offered in-centives to move and other agencies
now are looking at similar programs, says VDOT’s
Stuart Waymack, right of way and utilities director.
The apartments now house bridge workers.
Approaches
and interchange ramps tying into the new Wilson
Bridge must be rebuilt while keeping traffic flowing.
In Maryland, the $200-million
Interstate 295 interchange work is well under way. Its
fourth and final contract will be bid next month, says
David Wallace, approach manager for PCC. Initial work
included 10,000 linear ft of wick drains and settlement
plates to preconsolidate some 550,000 cu yd of fill
for the new outer loop lanes, says Glenn Evans, PCC
area engineer. York, Pa.-based G.A. and F.C. Wagman
Inc. is completing two contracts worth a total of $87
million, including outer loop ramps and flyovers.
"The hardest aspect
was getting material to the site," says Craig Lease,
MDOT resident engineer. The last contract to build the
inner loop will utilize geofoam blocks because of the
limited time for settlement in the schedule.
Wagman also holds an $18.7-million
contract to build noisewalls at the Maryland 210 interchange.
A $45-million contract to build a new bridge carrying
210 over the beltway will be awarded in March, says
Wallace. A $60-million contract for MD 210 inner and
outer loops will be awarded this fall.
In March 2003, PCC sent outreach
letters with specs and other information to 375 firms
to encourage them to bid on the $45-million contract
and a $90-million contract on I-295 that will include
10 bridges and a pedestrian link to major riverside
development. Both will be awarded this spring. "Contractors
appreciated the six-month heads-up," Wallace says.
Gives readers a glimpse of who is planning and constructing some of the largest projects throughout the U.S. Much information for pulse is derived from McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge.
For more information on a project in Pulse that has a DR#, or for general information on Dodge products and services, please visit our Website at www.dodge.construction.com.
Information is provided on construction projects in following stages in each issue of ENR: Planning, Contracts/Bids/Proposals and Bid/Proposal Dates.
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