Crews are rapidly placing track sections in advance of the spring 2014 opening of the Oakland Airport Connector. Conceived in the early 1970s and started in 2010, the $484-million project will connect the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to the airport.
Bigge Crane and Rigging, San Leandro, Calif., is providing and operating the cranes on the 3.2-mile project. Several of the lifts have occurred during overnight shutdowns of Interstate 880, one of the busiest freeways in the Bay Area.
"It makes the job a little more dangerous and extremely time-sensitive," says Chris Clark, Bigge sales representative.
Bigge brought in a Demag AC-500 hydraulic truck crane to lift the massive steel trusses into place for the 300-ft-long span over the freeway. The eight-axle crane provides a 600-ton lift capacity, with 396,000 lb of counterweight for the 183-ft main boom. Crews used a Grove GMK6350 on an earlier section of the project, being built under a design-build contract by Flatiron/Parsons.
Bigge's safety record was a key factor in being selected for the job, Clark says. Earlier this month at its annual conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association, Centreville, Va., awarded Bigge its 2012 Zero Accidents Award, given to firms without a recordable incident in a single year.
Only 18 of the association's 1,300 member firms have received the award this year.
