AASHTO Journal, 15 August 2014 Image courtesy The Ohio River Bridges. The $2.3 billion project building a new Ohio River crossing between Louisville, Kentucky and southern Indiana will continue after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that sought to halt construction, alleging the project’s state partners – the Kentucky Transportation…
AASHTO Journal, 8 August 2014 The well-publicized collapse of an interstate bridge north of Seattle last year was the result of “a series of deficiencies in a system intended to safeguard the passage of oversized loads over Washington State’s roadways” according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which released its final report on the incident last month. A truck…
AASHTO Journal, 18 July 2014 Last December, the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Mackinac Bridge Authority stalled scheduled toll hikes on the Mackinac Bridge due to department efficiencies—an announcement that was made again last week when the two entities announced they will forgo the scheduled toll increases “at least two more years.” Officials said the bridge did not…
AASHTO Journal, 11 July 2014 Kansas Department of Transportation officials recently launched a new program that will assist the state’s agriculture industry by helping localities fund bridge fixes. KDOT’s $10 million program, designed to cut the amount of deficient bridges on local road systems throughout the state, will provide up to $120,000 to counties (and possibly other local jurisdictions)…
The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that considers the long-term durability of reinforced concrete structures with external chloride concentrations different than those at the permanently immersed, tidal, and splash zones of partially-immersed bridges. Read the Report
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 776: Bridge System Safety and Redundancy provides proposed revisions to the design philosophy section of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Bridge Design Specifications. The following appendices are available for download: A1: Specifications A2: Commentary A3: Implementation Example for I-Girder System…
AASHTO Journal, 6 June 2014 Officials at the Delaware Department of Transportation are working this week to get a heavily traveled bridge on busy I-495 back up and running after an emergency closure this week. On Monday, DelDOT officials found during an inspection that four support piers had shifted on Bridge I-813 over the Christina River on I-495. Engineers found…
AASHTO Journal, 6 June 2014 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo this week joined New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald to announce that the state has chosen a design-build team to tackle its largest single contract ever—a $555 million bridge replacement in the New York City area. The Kosciuszko Bridge, which carries the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway over Newtown…
Tom Warne Report, 27 May 2014 Florida Times-Union – May 19, 2014 The federal government is responsible for several errors which resulted in a towed Navy cargo ship striking the Matthews Bridge last September, and should pay for the $4.1 million repair, Florida transportation officials claim in a filing in naval court last month. The state reported that the…
The Florida Department of Transportation has released a report that assesses the use of carbon fiber composite cables in lieu of conventional steel prestressing strands in bridge foundations. Read the Report
The Virginia Department of Transportation has released a report that updates its management plan for historic bridges by collecting information on the status of Virginia’s 54 historic bridges. Read the Report
AASHTO Journal, 4 April 2014 Michigan Department of Transportation officials announced Wednesday that Quantum Signal has become the first company to receive manufacturer plates under a new Michigan law that broadens eligibility in automated vehicle testing on the state’s roadways. Gov. Rick Snyder signed Public Act 231 into law last December, a measure that “explicitly approved testing of…
AASHTO Journal, 28 March 2014 Tennessee Department of Transportation officials last week were on hand to celebrate the opening of a bridge that will more easily connect two communities after years of planning. TDOT last weekend opened the new $29.5 million SR 109 bridge, allowing one lane in each direction to carry vehicles across the span, which connects the…
AASHTO Journal, 21 March 2014 A report released this week by the Indiana Department of Transportation shows that a major bridge project, constructed in partnership with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, will not only better connect the two areas and provide greater mobility, but also infuse $87 billion into the local economy and add 15,000 jobs to the area. The…
AASHTO Journal, 10 January 2014 The Rhode Island Department of Transportation recently took home an award for the design of its Pawtucket River Bridge, completed last September. RIDOT received the Honor Award from the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the design of the bridge. One of the organization’s most prestigious awards, the Honor Award…
AASHTO Journal, 20 December 2013 Officials from the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Mackinac Bridge Authority (MBA) announced Tuesday that they have halted the toll increases scheduled to take place on the bridge on Jan. 1, allowing drivers to keep a little extra money in their pockets in the new year. Instead of raising the tolls for 2014 as originally planned, the…
Better Roads, 29 November 2013 Amanda Bayhi The recent drop in transportation infrastructure spending has some highway contractors moving to other fields such and energy exploration, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The highway construction industry lost more than 2 million workers during the recession, reaching a low in January 2011. Since then, the industry has…
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program has issued a request for proposals to develop specific guidance for design, construction, and maintenance personnel on the function of filters and their installation. Proposals are due January 7, 2014. Read the RFP
AASHTO Journal, 8 November 2013 The Ohio Department of Transportation is stepping in to assist cities and counties in repairing their bridges, a move made possible through ODOT’s efforts to make the department more efficient. Gov. John Kasich announced last week that ODOT will be investing $120 million to repair and replace more than 200 bridges owned by cities…
AASHTO Journal, 8 November, 2013 The U.S. Department of Transportation announced this week that the heavily traveled Goethals Bridge, which connects Elizabeth, N.J. to Staten Island, N.Y., will receive a major financial boost for its replacement from the federal TIFIA loan program. To help complete the new $1.5 billion Goethals Bridge, USDOT will provide a $474 million TIFIA loan….
Better Roads, 8 November 2013 Tina Grady Barbaccia Better Roads Magazine’s exclusive survey of bridge conditions in the United States shows that every year the percentage of overall structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridges slightly improves, but for most states consistent, guaranteed funding remains a major roadblock to making bigger strides in this important infrastructure. Methodology: The Better Roads…
Better Roads, 6 November 2013 Tina Grady Barbaccia Every year, Better Roads conducts a survey on the state of the nation’s bridges. The survey has been conducted since 1979. Bridge engineers from every state and Washington, D.C., are sent a survey with both qualitative and quantitative questions to determine the percentage of structurally deficient (SD) and functionally obsolete (FO)…
The Mountain-Plains Consortium, part of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University, Fargo, has released a report that develops design guidelines for integral abutment bridges. Read the Report
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 761: Reference Guide for Applying Risk and Reliability-Based Approaches for Bridge Scour Prediction presents a reference guide designed to help identify and evaluate the uncertainties associated with bridge scour prediction including hydrologic, hydraulic, and model/equation uncertainty. For complex foundation systems and channel conditions, the report includes a step-by-step procedure designed to…
Tom Warne Report, 29 October 2013 Land Line Magazine – October 23, 2013 Transportation officials in Wisconsin say a plan is in place to repair a Green Bay I-43 bridge over the Fox River that began sagging last month. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has hired a contractor and hopes it will have the Leo Frigo Bridge repairs completed…
The Kentucky Transportation Center has released a report that explores the inspectability and accelerated weathering performance of optically active pigment coating in a laboratory test program. Read the Report
The Virginia Department of Transportation has released a report that discusses its bridge coating practices in order to identify areas where process improvements and cost savings could be realized. Read the Report
TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Renewal Project R19A has released a prepublication, non-edited version of a report titled Bridges for Service Life Beyond 100 Years: Innovative Systems, Subsystems, and Components that develops approaches and procedures to enhance service life design for existing and new bridges. Read the Pre-Publication
The Kentucky Transportation Center has released a report that details the pre-construction monitoring, planning and design, and construction measures of Kentucky’s US 150 bridge. Read the Report
The Kentucky Transportation Center has released a report that documents repair of I-65 bridges, including repairs of precast, prestressed concrete girder spans and the reinforced concrete bearing pads. Read the Report
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