Wednesday, September 29, 2010

This one I have to see

The states of Indiana and Kentucky need to replace the bridge over the Ohio River at Madison, Ind. The plan was to demolish the old bridge, rehabilitate the piers and build a new one. That would take the river crossing out of service for a year, to be replaced with temporary ferry service.

But a new plan has a new bridge to be built beside the old one, on temporary supports. The existing piers would be rehabilitated while the bridge remains open. Then the old bridge would be removed and the new bridge slid into place on the existing piers. That would cut the outage time to 10 days.

Details are here.

That is something I want to see.



3 comments:

Henry M. said...

I have to see this as well. They show a "similar" project being done but it was a 200 foot bridge, not a half mile one!

ohio981 said...

About 12 years ago, West Virginia built a new bridge over the Kanawha River near the Toyota plant. That bridge was built of concrete beams. Each beam was ab out the width of the river. They brought the prefabricated beams to the site and lifted them into place.

The Kanawha River is not as wide as the Ohio, but it was an interesting construction method. I would live to see a 3,000-foot steel truss bridge being slid into place onto new piers.

The Huntington District of the Corps of Engineers has talked about extending the small lock at the Greenup Locks and Dam by building sections off site and them floating them into place. That would allow the main lock to remain in operation rather than being closed for an extended period. But that project is nowhere near being funded, and design work has to be done first.

Henry M. said...

By the way there is a bridge currently under construction across the Mississippi that you can view on a webcam .

It is the John James Audubon Bridge, interesting to watch.