Bridge Over Troubled Waters

I-580, Galena Creek Bridge Finally Take Shape

by Tony Illia

The final segment of the $440 million I-580 extension between Reno and Carson City is underway, including the construction of a one-of-a-kind concrete arch bridge over Galena Creek.

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Nevada's largest and toughest highway project is taking shape after years of planning and design.

The $440-million, 8.5-mi Interstate 580 extension between Reno and Carson City is now under way with a target completion date of 2011. Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., a general contractor based in Dickinson, N.D., was selected for the $393.3 million project to complete the final segment. It's the biggest single contract ever awarded by the Nevada Department of Transportation.

The new six-lane, 10-bridge freeway will bypass a busy, accident-prone stretch of U.S. Highway 395 through Pleasant Valley that currently sees 40,000 vehicles daily, making it Northern Nevada's most congested rural highway. NDOT estimates there will be an 80% increase in U.S. 395 traffic by 2015.

The new I-580 extension, designed by CH2M HILL Cos. of Englewood, Colo., will help relieve that with more travel lanes, higher speed limits and controlled-access on-and-off ramps. U.S. 395, by contrast, is an at-grade, four-lane highway with intersections that don't have signals.

I-580, whose roots stretch back to 1957, will be a welcome relief to local commuters. The freeway's first segment from the Carson City/Washoe County line to Lakeview finished in 1964. It was followed by the Lakeview to Winters Ranch section that opened in 1970.

But the Winters Ranch to Glendale Avenue portion ran into trouble when project opponents filed lawsuits in 1972-73 challenging the proposed alignment.

Congress, meanwhile, passed the National Environmental Policy Act, which led to necessary environmental impact studies that weren't completed until 1977. Additional segments came online in the 1980s and early 90s, carrying the freeway to Virginia Street and the Mount Rose Highway.

Strong public interest in the new freeway extension led to nine months of meetings with the neighbors and local advisory boards, producing an environmentally sensitive, low-profile design. The alignment, as a result, connects at the Mount Rose interchange and travels southwest along the hillside to join the existing freeway at the Bowers Mansion cutoff.

Although aesthetically pleasing, the alignment is located along steep and rocky terrain, which has brought numerous engineering challenges, including a 1,722-ft-long, 300-ft-tall bridge spanning Galena Creek about 20 mi south of Reno.

"It will be the nation's longest cathedral-arch bridge once it's completed," says Scott Magruder, NDOT spokesman. "It's a one-of-a-kind structure."

The project has faced other challenges. NDOT parted ways with contractor Edward Kraemer & Sons Inc., three years into construction. The Plain, Wis.-based firm was awarded a $79.5 million contract in November 2003. But the two parties mutually ended their working relationship in May 2006 over a disagreement on the Galena Creek Bridge's pilot truss erection.

Kraemer was paid 58.6% of its contract at the time of its departure, leaving the span about 40% complete. It had also nearly finished three smaller approach bridges. NDOT repackaged the remaining work with 8.5 mi worth of divided freeway paving and miscellaneous retaining walls, storm drainage and lighting.

In November, NDOT awarded Fisher Sand & Gravel the low-bid contract, even though the firm's bid was 19.1% over the engineer's estimate.

"We needed to award this project because construction inflation will probably be 14 to 16% in 2007," says NDOT Director Susan Martinovich. "But we're going to cut our pavement preservation program by 50% to help pay for it."

Fisher partnered with C.C. Myers Inc. of Rancho Cordova, Calif., to tackle the project's 10 bridges, which make up about 31% of the workload.

The majority of bridges are all cast-in-place, post-tensioned box girder structures, says Bill Crawford, CH2M HILL's senior transportation technologist. The Galena Creek Bridge, however, consists of two parallel three-lane concrete-and-steel structures with 689-ft main spans.

The pilot truss erection method, designed by NDOT, calls for 18 steel segments to be bolted and welded together, forming a structural framework.

The contractor then wraps rebar and concrete around the trusses to produce a finished bridge.

But Fisher wants to fill the canyon with 300,000 cu meters of compacted soil, temporarily raising the creek floor by 140 ft, and erect conventional falsework. (The proposal is still pending NDOT approval.) The project requires hauling a total of 3 million cu meters of earth. Fisher will excavate, haul and grade the material itself.

"At any given time, we'll be running 40-plus machines," says Tommy Fisher, company president. "We're producing all the aggregates from the excavation so it allows us to be self-sufficient."

Fisher will have crushing and screening operations at each end of the project, with central batch and hot plants. The firm will self-perform the asphalt paving, which is 90% of the roadway, and subcontract the remaining concrete component to McNeil Bros. Inc. of Phoenix. The project will use 900,000 tons of aggregate base, 1 million tons of backfill and 3,000 tons of hot-mix.

"We'll have 200 people onsite at the peak of construction activity," Fisher says. "Our vertical integration enables us to do almost everything onsite, eliminating worries about trucks getting struck in traffic."

The 1,000-day project schedule, which carries $12,700 a day in liquidated damages for late completion, is currently on track to finish in 2011. <<

Key Players

Owner: Nevada Dept. of Transportation
General Contractor: Fisher Sand & Gravel
Consulting Engineer: CH2M HILL
Bridge Contractor: C.C. Myers Inc.
Other: Case Pacific Co.; Rinker Materials; Par Electrical Contractors Inc.; McNeil Bros. Inc.

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