PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Beckville Road Bridge in the North Manheim Township of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, stood in desperate need of repair. Passing over the West branch of the Schuylkill River, the concrete T-beam bridge was built in 1927 and in 2019, the bridge was rated as being in poor condition.
With the detour sending all truck traffic through the town of Schuylkill Haven for the duration of this project, the general contractor awarded a total contract of $4.9M to the team tasked with reconstructing a crucial community path in a matter of three or four short months.
NTM Engineering began by performing an alternatives analysis to evaluate three alignments for the SR 3005 Beckville Road Bridge replacement. This allowed them to determine the level of impact this work would have on the surrounding area as the team reviewed the project’s purpose and scope.
PRECAST SOLUTION
With a strong focus on reducing the potential for disturbance to consumers and the public, the Beckville Road Bridge reconstruction project offered an improved experience for all parties involved. The accelerated precast bridge solution helped to minimize disruption and create the shorter construction timeline that the owner was looking for.
Working closely together throughout the duration of the project, the engineer, contractor, and precast producer made impressive progress that helped the team stay a month ahead of the schedule during the project’s early phases.
“It has been really nice working with NPP. Panels were done on time, even with all the chaos of COVID-19. All the pieces worked and fit well together. The production team did a great job of manufacturing all the panels as to how they should be. The construction easement is on NPP’s property; this was a big plus on this job.” – Zachary Artim, Project Engineer
The new Beckville Road Bridge was designed as a spread box beam bridge constructed of prestressed concrete that was set to stand 44 feet wide and 73 feet long set on top of a total precast substructure.
Utilizing an accelerated total precast bridge was the solution that allowed the team to satisfy this project’s tight timeline demands.
“With this being a truck route through Cressona, the state deemed we only had four months to complete this job. So we went with a precast sub-structure which accelerated the construction speed and increased productivity by almost fifty percent. A typical bridge project of this scope would take around five to six months to complete; this will take three to four months.” –Zachary Artim, Project Engineer |