More challenges were to come. "Because the floor beams from the arch side were so close to those on the approach side, design engineers couldn't get in to see the actual conditions," says Manuel Silva, NYSDOT construction area supervisor. Early in the project, crews found worse-than-expected deterioration of the now 50-year-old bridge's floor beams, spandrel girders and related connections.

Unexpected Conditions

"That was a huge problem. Those floor beams go across the whole bridge," says Silva. NYSDOT's designers drew up new plan sheets, which the contractor reviewed, offering suggestions. "When we agreed on a final design, [the contractor] had to do shop drawings and obtain approvals," Silva says. "They did a 3D model of the interface of the floor beams with the spandrel girders. They suggested assembling elements at the fabricator, so they could be brought to the site and dropped in one piece."

Jameson adds, "You have these four big arch ribs, and spandrel girders that support the floor beams and stringers. At the very end of each of those girders—at eight locations—there was deterioration no inspector could ever see because there was so much steel there. When we took the deck off—whoa."

Designers with Jacobs Engineering, based in Albany, had to come up with new designs to replace the deteriorated parts. "They took on an intimate relationship with this job," says Jameson. "They stepped up to the plate and asked us how to fix the deterioration problem. Their new designs incorporated our ideas."

Noting that NYSDOT went through budget cuts a couple of years ago, Jameson adds, "Things were in turmoil from what I understand. And then we went through a period of massive submittals. But the designers kept pumping them out."

As the owner, designer and contractor figured out the revised plan, NYSDOT estimates the project fell behind by almost 11 months, says Silva. Since then, the team has made up all the lost time. It helped that Johnny Ho, Jacobs senior project manager, is situated in the field office. "This is the first project for NYSDOT where the original designer is in the field office," Ho says. "This bridge is so important. They were concerned about anything technical holding up the schedule. Normally, when the contractor has questions, they send in a request for information to the field-office engineer, who sends it to the designer. But we skipped that protocol. The contractor drops by my office or gives me a call and often gets an answer right away."

Bruce Ogurek, NYSDOT acting director of construction, says, "There was unprecedented devotion" to construction progress monitoring all around, noting weekly and sometimes daily meetings with the contractor and resident engineer M&J Engineering. "This was basically our first project where we used electronic tools for an almost paperless environment. All the work inspection reports, engineer diaries, meeting minutes, change orders and estimated payments are electronic," adds Silva. Frequent personal trips by designers between Albany and the site office include weekly exchanges of priority-action items that are submitted by the contractor, says Silva.

Value-engineering proposals also saved about $5 million. One of the biggest, put forth at the start of work, addressed the truss-girder installation inside the existing structural-steel main span, says Jameson. "That truss was a worry from the beginning of the job. We got the installation of the temporary structures moving along, then attacked this issue" of replacing the truss, he says. "We saved about $3 million by eliminating almost 550 tons of steel out of some 1,040 tons."

The contract has six stages. In stage one, crews removed median barriers, installed temporary decks, and widened and strengthened existing substructure pier caps and abutments. In stage two, crews demolished the bridge's northern exterior 15-ft-wide deck overhang, installed new plate girders, brackets and floor beams, then installed a new 30-ft-wide deck with new concrete parapets and replaced all the bearings. In stage three, crews repeated the process for the southern side.