According to representatives for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Hurricane Bridge renovation is proceeding ahead of schedule, and could be finished as early as May, and construction on the new bridge at Sligo should begin this summer.
Paul Degges, chief engineer for the TDOT, along with State Representatives Mark Pody, Terri Lynn Weaver and other TDOT officials, visited an all-committees’ meeting with County Mayor Mike Foster and the county commission Thursday night, telling the assembly that good weather conditions might speed the Hurricane Bridge project up even more.
“We are running considerably ahead of schedule on that project,” said Degges. “We anticipate being able to open that to traffic probably by the first of May. If we have good weather this winter, we might even beat that. You might recall our original completion estimate was October of this year, so we are significantly ahead of schedule,” Degges informed the commissioners.
OCCI Incorporated was awarded the $26.9 million contract to rehabilitate the structure, which was built during World War II, in October 2010, and the contract calls for the job to be complete by Oct. 31.
Degges said bids on the long-delayed Sligo Bridge, which was held up by disagreements with Sligo Marina, will likely be opened in April or May, and construction should begin soon afterward.
Right-of-way acquisition was the sticking point in negotiations between marina owners and TDOT, with the the owners demanding that the state pay the marina for loss of business during construction.
Apparently TDOT is prohibited by law from paying such damages, and the situation was complicated by the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers, and by extension the federal government, is the sole landowner, but the land is leased to the marina.
TDOT officials apparently put forth several different plans for the bridge, but no agreement with the marina could be reached.
The current plan calls for the bridge to be built from barges on the lake.
The barges will be assembled on the water to support the cranes and other equipment to build the new structure.
“Our original design had some pretty significant impacts to the parking lot of the marina,” Degges informed the crowd.
“In working with the Corps of Engineers and the marina, we tried to come up with a design that we felt was a good design that worked for us and worked for the marina. The marina owners were not satisfied with our design, so we went back again and tried to re-design the project to come up with a different type of design that would work,” he said.
“Ultimately, we never really could satisfy the marina, so we backed up and looked at it again. We brought in a lot of contractors and did a constructability review so now we have come up with a way to build the bridge from the water and from the roadway so we're not going to have to be off our reservation, so to speak, with the bridge,” Degges said.
While building the bridge from the water will be more costly, Degges said the marina will be less affected by the construction.
Officials expect construction to be finished 24-30 months after the bids are let and the building begins.
“For the most part, we're going to be building the bridge from the river,” Degges said. “It is going to run our costs up, but we believe we have the resources available to deliver it. We're still finalizing our real estate agreement with the Corps of Engineers that allows us to get all of our permits but we anticipate being able to open bids probably in the April to May time frame and be under construction this summer. It will probably be 24-30 months of construction to get the new bridge in place, but the existing roads will be open to traffic during that time.”
Degges said the method of construction should aid traffic-flow problems while the bridge is being assembled.
“Certainly there will be some construction delays through there, but we won't have a traffic signal,” he said. “As far as construction impacts, there will still be access to the marina during construction and there will still be access across the bridge. It will be posted. It’s at 22 tons right now and we hope to be able to keep it at that weight posting. I don't see anything happening that's going to have us change that.”
Degges said the rapid deterioration at Sligo demands that the project proceed as quickly as possible.
“Old bridges deteriorate a lot faster than newer bridges,” Degges told the commission. “The condition goes along pretty uniformly for a number of years, but when that condition drops, it plummets pretty fast. That's why we made the decision to go ahead and move forward with this project," he said.
Degges also said that the construction presents a unique set of problems.
“The first issue here is that the water is over 100-feet deep,” he said. “These piers coming up out of the bottom of the river will be about 200-feet tall. Building the foundation underwater in 100 feet of water is difficult work. The steepness of the ravine going down to the river makes it very difficult as well. We have a 335-foot main span, but the real issue is getting the sub-structures in place and being able to get the cranes in to be able to hang the beams,” Degges noted.
The new structure will completely replace the existing bridge, and will be constructed beside the old bridge.
The old bridge will be torn down and scrapped at the completion of the project.
“We're going to build what we call a steel-plate girder bridge with a concrete deck,” Degges continued. “Right now, the bridge is a truss, and it is somewhat narrow. The new bridge we're going to put in here will have 12-foot lanes and 10-foot shoulders. It will be what most people would consider a traditional bridge, in that the beams of this bridge will be under the deck.”
The entire project is estimated at a little over $30 million, and will be funded under TDOT's Better Bridges, a four-year program approved in 2009 by the Tennessee General Assembly that utilizes bonds to pay for the repair or replacement of more than 200 structurally deficient bridges in the state.
“We were able to come up with a new funding mechanism, which we call our Better Bridges Program, that allows us to utilize dollars available so we don't have to borrow money. It is a way that we use bond authorizations that allow us to let bigger projects and pay for them as they're being constructed. It keeps us from having to borrow any money but it allows us to advance pretty expensive projects,” Degges said.