“Hold your breath, we’re going over a bridge!” Rooted in superstition and silliness, the classic road trip tradition takes place countless times for drivers and passengers while crossing over one of the 624,000 bridges in the U.S. While the tradition may be lighthearted, the craftmanship behind building and maintaining bridges can take your breath away. As bridge infrastructure continues to age, communities need to take an active role in supporting their improvement. According to the American Road, Transportation & Bridges Association, one in three U.S. bridges needs repair or replacement immediately.

From iconic landmarks to heavily trafficked roads, bridges connect communities. Each project demands a unique approach to meet the needs of the client and of the community it is serving, while remaining true to the core principles that make a bridge project successful.

 

 

Connecting Fort Worth with a Landmark Bridge

The Texas Department of Transportation wanted the best of both worlds when reconstructing the West 7th Street Bridge in Fort Worth: a structural landmark signifying the connection between the city’s downtown and cultural district coupled with improved pedestrian access and safety.

Sundt rose to the challenge, removing the existing, nearly century old bridge and replacing it with a brand-new, one-of-a-kind structure. The original bridge served as a major connection point for residents of Fort Worth, as well as the road to the famous annual Fort Worth Stock and Rodeo Show. Closing the bridge for a prolonged construction schedule was not an option. The team presented an expedited schedule, deciding to construct the bridge’s concrete arches offsite and using 3D modeling to plan and build them, preventing lengthy road closures. These innovative solutions helped the team complete the project a full month ahead of schedule.

The completed bridge features 12 precast, post-tensioned concrete arches that run along the length of the structure. Each iconic arch stands 24 feet tall and is approximately 160 feet wide, weighing 640,000 pounds. These arches, paired with embedded lighting that illuminates the bridge at night, create an immediately identifiable Fort Worth landmark.

 

 

Improving Wildlife Migration with Bridge Innovation

Boeckman Road in Wilsonville, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, provides a vital connection as one of three primary east-west corridors for travel. As reconstruction began, the construction team focused on relieving congestion, improving safety, and enhancing traffic flow.

In addition to providing roadway improvements, the team was tasked by project leaders with creating a bridge that serves as an ecological corridor so that fish and other wildlife could safely pass through the area. Teams of researchers spent 10 months monitoring plants and animals near the original, undersized culvert. They discovered that several native animals resided in the open wetland area, but were unable to travel through the dry, upper culvert.

To improve wildlife migration, the team set out to remove the undersized culverts and construct the Boeckman Dip Bridge to restore the creek’s natural flow.

Beyond improving the creek for native species, the bridge enhances safety and visibility by reducing roadway slope, adds protected bike and pedestrian facilities and expands recreational access between Frog Pond and Memorial Park.

 

 

Aggressive Schedule, Spectacular Results

As a part of the San Pedro Creek Improvements project, Sundt successfully completed a replacement of the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) Bridge, a connection point for the park’s north and south sections, under an extremely tight timeline.

Due to the operational needs of the UPRR, the team was allotted a single 75-hour track outage window to complete the entire bridge replacement on an active rail line. The team completed extensive pre-planning, collaborating with Union Pacific, the San Antonio River Authority and Bexar County to minimize on-site construction time. Crews worked in rolling shifts, 24 hours a day, to meet schedule demands and complete the project on time, sequencing every phase down to the hour.

The scope of the project included replacing the original 105-foot wooden trestle bridge with a 195-foot precast concrete bridge. The team built the new bridge to modern standards, supporting rail operations and improving the creek’s hydraulic capacity and flood control. To support the structure, crews installed 14 drilled shafts, each 48 inches in diameter and 60 feet deep. They also laid over 300 feet of new railroad track and ballast to align with the new bridge crossing and completed utility locations to clear the area for bridge foundation work.

 

 

Tailored Solutions Grounded in Core Principles

Each bridge has a unique purpose, from creating iconic landmarks to restoring ecological harmony. Sundt delivers a tailored approach to the challenges accompanying each one, while upholding a core set of principles that define successful bridge construction: community-centered outcomes, engineered precision, stakeholder coordination and early involvement.

• Community-centered outcomes: A technically perfect bridge can still fail if it doesn’t meet the needs of the people who use it. Our team prioritizes the voices of communities we serve to ensure the completed bridge is a public asset – not just a technical solution.
• Engineered precision: The structural integrity of bridges is critical to creating a safe, efficient and durable structure. Precise engineering allows for proper alignment, smooth assembly of prefabricated parts and durability of the structure under heavy loads and against time and environmental elements.
• Stakeholder coordination: Our teams facilitate consistent communication among all project partners through regular meetings and transparent updates. This proactive coordination helps identify and resolve issues early, builds trust with the client and community, and ensures the project progresses efficiently from start to finish.
• Early involvement: Involving all stakeholders early aligns project goals from the beginning, minimizing risks related to existing conditions, cost and safety.

By allowing these fundamentals to drive our approach to each project, Sundt consistently delivers the highest quality bridge projects that optimize design, are aesthetically great and connect the communities we serve.

Discover more about our bridge expertise here.