Case Studies
Tim Erickson, Lake of the Woods County, Minn., engineer, was looking for the best solution to rehabilitate County State Aid Highway (CSAH) #8. This was a 5.2-mile project in the heart of the county’s fishing resort and agriculture industries. It was crucial that whatever the county did to address...
Merchants Bridge crosses the Mississippi River, connecting St. Louis, Mo., to Venice, Ill. The bridge was initially constructed in the late 1800s and is the oldest rail structure crossing the Mississippi River. Among the many maintenance activities throughout the 1900s, the original timber trestles...
With a population of 66,000, St. Charles is Missouri’s ninth-largest city, and was the state’s capital from 1821 to 1826.
“We have old and new areas, which means we have a lot of odd-sized sewer structures,” the city's Lead Equipment Operator Cory Rackley said. “Adjustable risers make it much...
Regardless of the warning signs, lights and other signals for a change in traffic patterns, accidents are still happening in our work zones. In 2017 alone, the Pennsylvania Crash Facts and Statistics recorded a total of 1,778 crashes in these areas, 43% of which resulted in injuries or fatalities....
A $10.3 million project in Devon, U.K., necessitated the reconstruction of a half-mile single-lane road designed to reduce congestion and support economic development in the area. The approved route required a significant amount of material (nearly 131,000 cu yd) on adjacent slopes to be excavated...
Highway construction is always a significant undertaking, but some projects come with more backstory than others. Take the West Waukesha Bypass in Waukesha, Wis., which has been in discussion since at least the 1970s. Designed to provide a link around the city by connecting I-94 and S.R. 59, the...
The Illinois DOT (IDOT) must find a safe route for trucks traveling in the state of Illinois and issue an oversize/overweight (OS/OW) permit for trucks carrying large loads. With slow, manual permitting processes, IDOT sought to update and automate its permitting system. IDOT implemented the...
The Bear Cut Bridge and West Bridges is part of the Rickenbacker Causeway that connects Key Biscayne and Miami in Florida. The Rickenbacker Causeway is named after Eddie Rickenbacker, a WWI vet and founder of Eastern Air Lines. The original work on the bridges began in 1926, and in 1947 it was...
The city of Troy, Mich., is located among Metropolitan Detroit’s northern suburbs in Oakland County. It currently maintains a network of more than 350 miles of local, major and county roads under the jurisdiction of its public works department.
The city has a regular inspection program for its...
Compared to other bridges, pedestrian bridges have it easy. After all, people are nowhere near as heavy as motor vehicles, tractor-trailers or trains. Because pedestrian bridges are built to bear smaller, lighter loads, architects and engineers are able to achieve an altogether different vision—...
Cranes and bulldozers rule different realms: one, the air and the other, land. So it is not every day they collaborate on setting a bridge, but they did just that for a temporary cantilever bridge in Aurora, N.C., in January. The 125-ft span is needed to maintain traffic flow on Rte. 33 over...
A Texas concrete slipform paving contractor took advantage of the cool and uncongested early morning hours before sunup to start the day's work and end it before noontime.
That was the game plan for constructing miles of concrete pavement for a massive residential project—Southern Pointe...
A concrete paved drainage channel on the Interstate 74 (I-74) right of way in Moline, Ill., collapsed due to years of undermining from soil erosion and scour, which resulted in severe erosion of the entire downstream waterway area. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) wanted to repair...
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) knew that the big box culvert running under State Road 64 in downtown Bradenton, Fla., either had to be replaced or rehabilitated—the question was how.
“We’re not even sure how old this culvert is, but judging by the square, twisted rebar, it...
The intersection of Routes 9 and 440 with the Garden State Parkway, one of New Jersey’s busiest and most vital cloverleaf complexes, developed sinkholes following Hurricane Irene in 2011. More than 500 ft of 60-year-old pipe were failing, with joints that were falling apart and some inverts that...
When the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Eastern Region, located in Spokane, scheduled a two-day paving project this past August on S.R. 26 near Colfax, they decided to deploy RoadQuake Temporary Portable Rumble Strips (TPRS) in the work zone.
Colfax, Wash., 60 miles due...
During a routine annual inspection in 2013, Grottoes, Va.—a town of 2,600 noted for its proximity to Grand Caverns, America’s oldest show cave—discovered severe corrosion in portions of its storm water system.
A large set of elliptical CMP culverts did not pass inspection—they were in poor...
Road-Tech Safety Services Inc., located in Shingle Springs, Calif., about 40 miles east of Sacramento, provides equipment rental and sales, traffic control supplies, and traffic control services to the highway construction industry.
Last summer, Road-Tech provided traffic control services for a...
Shutting down a main artery into a major metropolitan area is never a decision that is taken lightly. That is what was required this summer for reconstruction of the Broadway Avenue bridge over I-77 near downtown Cleveland. Kokosing Construction was the general contractor, working for the Ohio...
The city of Springfield, Mass., has suffered some hard times economically in the last several years. The downtown section of the city also was hit by a severe tornado in 2011. MGM Resorts International is helping to restore the city and its economy through the development of the MGM Springfield...