Battling the Elements

Five bridges, massive earthmoving encompass Arkansas project

By Dana Crisson

Excessive rain has slowed the construction progress of Austin Bridge & Road’s $35 million contract to build five bridges encompassing a portion of a loop of Interstate 30 around U.S. Highway 71 to Texarkana.

“The rain has been the biggest challenge on this job,” says Randall Rosenbaum, senior project manager at Fort Worth, Texas-based Austin Bridge. “With the unusually wet weather pattern, the process of getting borrow material out of the borrow pits that are located along the banks of the Red River has been difficult.”

advertisement

The owner of the project is the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD), with Steve Frisbee serving as resident engineer in charge of construction, and Austin Bridge is the general contractor.

Austin’s portion of the project starts at Highway 245 at Arkansas Boulevard and continues east and then north to I-30, ending at Highway 296. Another project joins the Austin bridge project at Highway 296 and proceeds to the north and west to Highway 71 north of Texarkana.

Don Donaldson at AHTD says the job includes construction of the I-30/Highway 71 interchange and 2.43 mi of roadway embankment, and structures for Highway 71 North of I-30 to Highway 296 and south of I-30 to the existing Highway 245 Interchange at Texarkana.

Initial preparation consisted of earthwork, ACHM binder and surface courses, and minor drainage structures.

The job involves a pair of continuous composite plate girder unit bridges over I-30 measuring 295 ft, a continuous composite girder unit interchange ramp bridge measuring 1,828 ft, and a pair of continuous composite prestressed concrete beam bridges over Highway 296 measuring almost 160 ft.

Other miscellaneous structures include a double reinforced concrete culvert spanning 31 ft, guardrail and wire fence.

“This will be a two-lane divided highway built to interstate standards,” Donaldson said. No entrance or exit ramps were included in the contract, he adds.

At peak work periods, approximately 50 to 60 workers will be working on the job, working in single shifts.

A number of borrow pits will be used during the job, supplying about 1 million cu yds of compacted embankment and 860,000 cu yds of select material.

“This is really just a big dirt job with a little bit of bridgework,” says Kyle Mosely, Austin project engineer.

“We have been fortunate with this project because problems with traffic control have been kept to a minimum, since construction is not in the middle of Texarkana, but in a rural area in the very outskirts of the city,” he says. “Only two businesses and three residences had been affected.”

The project will also incorporate 7,800 cu yds of concrete, 4 million pounds of structural steel and 1,700 tons of asphalt. Austin Bridge & Road owns and operates its own asphalt plants in Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth.

Austin Bridge & Road’s parent company, Austin Industries, was founded in 1918 as Austin Bridge Co. Austin and its operating companies engage in virtually every type of civil, commercial and industrial construction. The company operates primarily in the southern half of the United States, in Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Nebraska, Louisiana and Florida.

Work on the project began in March 2007.

“This was originally scheduled as a 24-month job, and we would have held firm to that date if weather conditions had been more favorable and the construction engineers had been able to work straight through,” said Moseley. “We should have a very good year in 2008, construction wise, if the weather cooperates.”

The estimated completion date is September 2009.