Beginning in 2015, the restoration of the George Washington Bridge began with the rehabilitation of the lower street level, removal of lead paint along with the replacement of the moving maintenance platforms (traverse). All portions of the first contract of the project included priority repairs to structural elements found in the lower portion and supporting steel members of the lower level, in addition to lead paint removal, repainting, and replacement of the undercarriage.

Work on this part of the project was completed in 2017 and the bridge was reported to be in good condition.

Around the same time, the bridge also repaired the sidewalk on its lower level of the eastbound main span and associated access spans to provide a smoother surface for motorists. The sidewalk repairs were completed in 2016.

Upon completion of construction, the bridge’s interstate palisade walkway screw was replaced and the upper level spans over the Hudson Terrace and Anchorage New Jersey were rehabilitated. The new IP Helix Ramp improved the geometry and safety of the roadway, met current seismic codes, and provided new, smoother roadway surfaces on the upper level approaches. This part of the restoration was completed last year.

In 2017, work began on replacing the structure’s suspension ropes and restoring the main cables. For this part of the capital project, teams were assigned:

• Replaced all 592 suspension ropes and handrails, restored the main cable, enhanced security, replaced the upper level of the sidewalk, and installed new ADA ramps at all 4 sidewalk accesses, including guardrails along the entire length of the sidewalks;
• Installation of state-of-the-art trunk cable dehumidification systems, as well as anchors that will maintain a 40% moisture level to limit potential corrosion;
• Installation of a state-of-the-art acoustic monitoring system on all trunk cables to monitor the number and location of potential future wire breaks and to help track the condition of the trunk cables moving forward;
• Replacing the existing standard LED necklace with color-changing LED lighting.

As for the cables themselves, Roger Prince, deputy director of the port’s capital program, added: “We expect them to last well into the next century – it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

While other projects continued to launch in 2018, by 2019, Paint BidTracker reported that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was seeking contractors to restore and re-coat the lower deck and lower level.

The project is estimated to cost between USD 150 million and 200 million. The project involves removing lead paint, repainting, and replacing moving service platforms for the remaining structural repairs to the lower deck and lower level steel support members.

Specifically, for steel surfaces, surface preparation is required using one or more of the following methods: hand tool cleaning, power tool cleaning, white metal cleaning, commercial cleaning, brushing, abrasive blasting to near white, or abrasive blasting to bare metal (SSPC-SP 2, SP 3, SP 5, SP 6, SP 7, SP 10, and SP 11).

Unless otherwise specified, the steel was to be abrasive blast cleaned to a near white color (SSPC-SP 10) using a shot blasting machine from the production line or an air jet. The selected contractor will use SSPC-VIS 1 to assess the degree of cleaning. The steel elements were to be coated with a zinc-rich coating system. However, the system was subject to change according to project requirements.

The post George Washington Bridge Project Releases Update appeared first on Fold So-Sev Enfriend.

To overcome these problems, a $508 million reconstruction project was launched on June 2, 2010.

The rehabilitation project is expected to last four years and falls under Contract No. 6 of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT), Bridge Division.

The 127-year-old bridge will look better after the reconstruction, and the traffic flow will be significantly improved.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the world’s longest suspension bridge when it opened in May 1883. Considered to be the most prestigious work in American history, the bridge was designed by John Augustus Roebling and completed by his son Washington Roebling.

The total length of the bridge is 6016 feet, and the length of the main span is 1595.5 feet. Each of the bridge’s four suspension cables is 3578.5 feet long. The bridge is free and carries 145,000 vehicles per day.

The total fund of $508 million for the bridge rehabilitation will come from three sources. USD 30 million will be provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). New York City’s capital funds will fund $286 million, and the remaining $192 million will be funded from other federal funding sources.

The rehabilitation project includes replacing the bridge deck, repainting steel elements, and increasing the number of lanes on the off-ramps.

As part of the safety and aesthetic plan, the Franklin Roosevelt Street (FDR) and Cadman Plaza exits will be widened by adding two more lanes. The project also includes the replacement of worn-out bulkheads and the membrane system.

Reconstruction of the bridge on the Manhattan side includes seismic retrofitting of the arch at Franklin Square, replacement of corroded railings and safety barriers, and the creation of two lanes from the southbound FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Construction work will include the replacement of the existing membrane system, bulkheads and access roads to the Brooklyn Bridge. The existing roadway pavement over the arch blocks and masonry will be repaired. The sprayed waterproofing membrane will be covered with a precast concrete roadway slab. Precast concrete-filled steel grating panels will be used to replace the existing deck on the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides. The decks will be replaced panel by panel to minimize the noise generated by drilling and jackhammering.

Painting work will be carried out to prevent rust damage to the steel. Dust collection, vacuum and recycling tools will be used to reduce air quality hazards. Abrasive blasting will be used to remove the existing protective coating, and the entire painting operation will be performed in accordance with the US Environmental Protection Act and the requirements of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

The post Brooklyn Bridge rehabilitation project appeared first on Fold So-Sev Enfriend.

Located between two major California fault lines, the earthquake-resistant East Span is open to traffic as the world’s longest single-tower, self-anchored suspension bridge (main span of 1,263 feet). The mega-project is also the largest public works project in California’s history.

TYLin’s unique design for the 525-foot-tall SAS tower consists of four steel shafts connected by shear link beams, which are designed to protect the load-bearing shafts in the event of an earthquake.

SAS uses a single 4,550-foot-long cable, the longest suspension cable with a loop ever used for a bridge. The cable stretches from the top of the tower and loops back under the western end, with thin suspension cables that attach the main cable to beams under the road deck.

The Skyway is the longest section of the East Span. The double viaducts have wide, side-by-side decks, accommodate a total of 10 lanes (five in each direction) and a steel bicycle and pedestrian path.

TYLin designed the Skyway to have an optimal span length of 524 feet. The viaducts consist of five frames to reduce the number of expansion joints. The frames serve the dual purpose of adapting to sliding while maintaining rigidity to resist seismic movements.

Project highlights:

• From concept and final design to construction support services, TYLin provided bridge construction expertise to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for all phases of the project;
• The lifeline design is engineered to withstand the strongest ground vibrations that engineers can expect over a 1500-year period;
• The TYLin design makes East Span the first suspension bridge without a deck-to-tower connection;
• The project marks the first use of seismic energy-absorbing shear link beams in a cable-supported bridge tower;
• The precast beam segments for the Skyway weigh up to 750 tons each, the largest ever built in the world at the time;
• State-of-the-art articulated tube beams are mounted at the expansion joints between the bridge frames.

The post San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge appeared first on Fold So-Sev Enfriend.

The Golden Gate Bridge has already begun and will cost approximately $35,000,000. San Francisco lies on top of a northward-stretching peninsula stretching between San Francisco Bay and the ocean, and this new bridge continues the peninsula line across the narrow and deep Golden Gate to the north shore, currently relatively uninhabited.

Construction on the second Bay Bridge will begin in March and is expected to be open to traffic in about five years. It stretches from a location at the foot of Market Street, San Francisco, to Yerba Buena Island in the center of the harbor (commonly known to San Franciscans as “Goat Island”). At this point, traffic will pass through a tunnel bored through a hill on the island, turn left at a slight angle, and continue across the rest of the bridge to the mainland in Oakland. The total length of the bridge will be seven miles, of which four and a half will be over water. Between San Francisco and Yerba Buena Island, there is a stretch of 9,000 feet above deep water. It will be spanned by two huge suspension bridges, the ends of which will be anchored to a huge concrete pier shared between them.

The clearance at this point will be 214 feet, which will give enough room for ships to pass. There is a 1400-foot-long cantilever bridge between the island and the Oakland mainland; the rest of the bridge is located over shallow water, and this part does not cause engineering problems.

The bridge will have two roadways located one above the other. The upper one will have six lanes for vehicular traffic and two for pedestrians. The lower one will have three lanes for trucks and two for electric trams.

The bridge will use 180,000 tons of steel with 67,000 miles of three-sixteenths of an inch thick steel wire strands woven into cables. 1,500,000 barrels of cement will be used on the bridge approaches and in the large deep-water pier.

The San Francisco Bay Bridge is being built largely with federal funds loaned by the Redevelopment Finance Corporation, a fact that played an important role in the recent election campaign. Mr. Hoover is a Californian, and Democrats claim that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was pressured to make the loan before the election in the hope that public opinion in the state would swing back to the Republicans. Whatever the facts about the bridge, California voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Roosevelt.

The post New ambitious Golden Gate Bridge appeared first on Fold So-Sev Enfriend.