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Houston: ship channel bridge project

Started by MaxConcrete, May 01, 2015, 03:29:30 PM

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bwana39

While the first  actual BRIDGE is not progressing at all, the approaches for this first of two  are going along on both banks as if nothing were amiss. It appears there are going to be complete approaches on both sides with zero work (perhaps not even a firm plan) on the bridge itself.
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.


Anthony_JK

Quote from: bwana39 on January 02, 2022, 10:03:10 PM
While the first  actual BRIDGE is not progressing at all, the approaches for this first of two  are going along on both banks as if nothing were amiss. It appears there are going to be complete approaches on both sides with zero work (perhaps not even a firm plan) on the bridge itself.

Really? From what I've heard, they will have to tear down and rebuild the approaches at least partly to adapt to the new steel girder design.

bwana39

Quote from: Anthony_JK on January 04, 2022, 11:31:22 PM
Quote from: bwana39 on January 02, 2022, 10:03:10 PM
While the first  actual BRIDGE is not progressing at all, the approaches for this first of two  are going along on both banks as if nothing were amiss. It appears there are going to be complete approaches on both sides with zero work (perhaps not even a firm plan) on the bridge itself.

Really? From what I've heard, they will have to tear down and rebuild the approaches at least partly to adapt to the new steel girder design.

There is a lot more of the approaches done than when I was there back in August. It doesn't look like the approaches have stopped. I know they were beginning to build the towers for the suspension cables and that is having to come down, but the approaches are just (rather high) concrete stringer sections. It was too late in the day to stop and take pictures.
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

Bobby5280

Once those bridge approach ramps are finished I can just imagine an Evel Knievel dare-devil type jumping the missing bridge gap with some kind of rocket car.

bwana39

Quote from: Bobby5280 on January 05, 2022, 02:03:06 PM
Once those bridge approach ramps are finished I can just imagine an Evel Knievel dare-devil type jumping the missing bridge gap with some kind of rocket car.

It looks like the approaches were lengthened toward the water by a couple of supports on each side of the channel from the ones originally set. They (the approaches) are mostly finished, but the bridge still does not appear to be in process at all.
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

Plutonic Panda

Looks like work will soon resume on the bridge with a price increase and obvious delays:

QuoteThe Ship Channel Bridge along the Sam Houston Tollway will cost Harris County nearly $300 million more, including $50 million to demolish what had been built as part of a "faulty design," according to county officials. The changes also will add three years to the project's original timeline.
What happened? According to Robert Treviño, executive director of Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA), the county hired an engineering consultant to conduct an independent review of the previous Engineer of Record design of the main span portion of the bridge.

- https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/houstons-1b-fix-zachry-construction-traylor-brothers-inc-to-correct-tollway-bridge/55892

bwana39

#56
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on March 22, 2022, 10:49:03 PM
Looks like work will soon resume on the bridge with a price increase and obvious delays:

QuoteThe Ship Channel Bridge along the Sam Houston Tollway will cost Harris County nearly $300 million more, including $50 million to demolish what had been built as part of a "faulty design," according to county officials. The changes also will add three years to the project's original timeline.
What happened? According to Robert Treviño, executive director of Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA), the county hired an engineering consultant to conduct an independent review of the previous Engineer of Record design of the main span portion of the bridge.

- https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/houstons-1b-fix-zachry-construction-traylor-brothers-inc-to-correct-tollway-bridge/55892

I want to point out. The pictures on this article are dated. The approaches are almost finished on BOTH sides of the channel. It is the bridge itself that is still to be constructed. 

It seems to imply that construction came to a total halt and NOTHING has happened since. The construction of the approaches has not had a significant delay. It is possible there is a three-year delay, but I think much if not most of that delay was already happening BEFORE the stop even happened.
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

bwana39

#57
I am not sure with the change to a more traditional bridge that we might re-think the second span altogether. IE keep the existing Jesse Jones Bridge as the northbound span..... It is more than wide enough for 3 lanes!
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

roadman65

https://goo.gl/maps/7HMUAvk56ZYAAUan6
I see the new bridge is going to be higher than the existing one.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

MaxConcrete

Quote from: roadman65 on May 04, 2022, 12:41:19 PM
https://goo.gl/maps/7HMUAvk56ZYAAUan6
I see the new bridge is going to be higher than the existing one.
No, it will have the same vertical clearance as the existing bridge, 175 feet. The reason the new approach span is higher at the point of the photo is because the new approach span has a lower grade, so it is longer and is above the existing approach until it reaches the bridge main span.

Of course, the cable stay towers will be much higher then the existing span, which has no structure above the bridge deck.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

bwana39

Quote from: MaxConcrete on May 04, 2022, 01:17:51 PM
Quote from: roadman65 on May 04, 2022, 12:41:19 PM
https://goo.gl/maps/7HMUAvk56ZYAAUan6
I see the new bridge is going to be higher than the existing one.
No, it will have the same vertical clearance as the existing bridge, 175 feet. The reason the new approach span is higher at the point of the photo is because the new approach span has a lower grade, so it is longer and is above the existing approach until it reaches the bridge main span.

Of course, the cable stay towers will be much higher then the existing span, which has no structure above the bridge deck.

So is the new design cable stayed? 
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

MaxConcrete

www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

bwana39

Quote from: MaxConcrete on May 04, 2022, 10:33:29 PM
Quote from: bwana39 on May 04, 2022, 10:15:27 PM
So is the new design cable stayed? 

https://www.shipchannelbridge.org/overview/program-facts.html



Isn't that the FIGG Design? This rendering is before the stop. I realize this would be a rather long span for a deck bridge, but the interviews from HCTRA seems to point that direction instead of cable stayed.
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

roadman65

So they're not copying the Fred Hartman to the east with tower designs I see.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

MaxConcrete

The official web site is still showing the original design. My perception is that the visual appearance of the main span will be mostly the same, but technical design features will change, such as using more steel instead of concrete.

But I don't know for a fact that the original appearance will be retained.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

bwana39

Quote from: MaxConcrete on May 05, 2022, 10:17:28 AM
The official web site is still showing the original design. My perception is that the visual appearance of the main span will be mostly the same, but technical design features will change, such as using more steel instead of concrete.

But I don't know for a fact that the original appearance will be retained.

I read quite a bit. Like you you, I saw nothing about the towers or the cables themselves.  My perception (apparently wrong) was that all cable stayed bridges were concrete. That misperception would have made the steel runners / stringers that they have definitely said are going to be in there incompatible with cable stayed.  The one thing I did see was where someone from HCTRA said the new design would be less visually striking (but did not say what the profile would look like. )
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

DNAguy

Quote from: bwana39 on May 05, 2022, 05:17:05 PM
Quote from: MaxConcrete on May 05, 2022, 10:17:28 AM
The official web site is still showing the original design. My perception is that the visual appearance of the main span will be mostly the same, but technical design features will change, such as using more steel instead of concrete.

But I don't know for a fact that the original appearance will be retained.

I read quite a bit. Like you you, I saw nothing about the towers or the cables themselves.  My perception (apparently wrong) was that all cable stayed bridges were concrete. That misperception would have made the steel runners / stringers that they have definitely said are going to be in there incompatible with cable stayed.  The one thing I did see was where someone from HCTRA said the new design would be less visually striking (but did not say what the profile would look like. )

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/toll-road-authority-explains-300-million-fix-for-ship-channel-bridge-project

QuoteRather than the original sleek concrete design, the bridge will be constructed with steel, like many other bridges. It will also take time to complete. Rather than the original 2024 completion date, work is now expected to last into 2028, before traffic congestion is eased on the busy thoroughfare.

Are you referring to this?

I don't know if they're saying the bridge will look totally different, the concrete pylons will now be steel pylons, or if the pylons will not be "˜sleek' but a bulky due to their use of steel.

Chris

Steel pylons were used a lot for the first generation of German cable-stayed bridges built in the 1960s and 1970s. These have similar spans as the Houston Ship Channel Bridge (which is 1320 ft).

Steel cable-stayed bridges are also more common in Japan, their largest cable-stayed bridges are steel. Examples: https://goo.gl/maps/6BgqdAaKG2m8BHrj6 or https://goo.gl/maps/xCL6GF8saYeLJs3F6

bwana39

HCTRA called it a (Pylon Construction) Pause.

https://www.shipchannelbridge.org/images/HCTRADocuments/newsreleases/HCTRA_SCB_Pylon_Construction_Pause_01-06-2020.pdf

They have continued on with the approaches, but is there any headway on the design of the actual bridge?
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

MaxConcrete

#69
I drove through the bridge project today. It is very difficult to get a decent view of the location of the main support pylons. As best as I can tell, there is nothing in the pylon locations, which means they have been demolished. It looks like all photos of the original pylons have been removed from the photo collections on the official web site.

Work on the new approaches is substantially complete, with the deck completed on the north and south sides.

March 2020 photo


Photos taken today

http://dallasfreeways.com/dfwfreeways/AARoads/20220911-8-bridge.jpg


http://dallasfreeways.com/dfwfreeways/AARoads/20220911-8-bridge-b.jpg
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

MaxConcrete

#70
The Houston Chronicle has a report on the project status today, with many photos.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/Ship-Channel-Bridge-after-design-changes-17499866.php

The original pylons were demolished (as I suspected in my previous post). The demolition cost was $50 million. The first concrete pouring event for the above-ground pylon was yesterday, which means it is now once again rising upward.

The article says "Each pylon now is nearly three times as large as the footprint along the ship channel, with 2.8 times the concrete and 8.3-times the steel rebar of the initial design." What? That seems like a lot. But since the span was changed to use a steel for the deck sections, it is probably much heavier now, necessitating a much larger pylon.

QuoteThe work does, however, come with a large cost. Commissioners Court in November approved spending nearly $300 million, including $50 million to demolish previously built work, simply to restart construction.

Combined with the pause to reconsider the design, the changes added two years to the project. Drivers will not cross the first of the two spans until mid-2025, when two northbound and southbound lanes will shift to the new structure. Crews then will demolish the existing bridge and build the second span. Finally, by 2028, the tollway will be four lanes in each direction with shoulders, something the current bridge has lacked, which sometimes could leading to a harrowing trip for motorists in heavy winds or rain high above the ship channel.

Though the changes along the Sam Houston Tollway largely will go unnoticed by drivers for months, structurally they are significant, starting at the ground level. Sub-surface work, where crews dug holes in excess of 200 feet and then poured concrete columns to stabilize the span stayed unchanged from the original design.

That makes the ongoing concrete pour, and another scheduled to start soon on the southern support for the span, huge in terms of concrete and construction timing. Each pylon now is nearly three times as large as the footprint along the ship channel, with 2.8 times the concrete and 8.3-times the steel rebar of the initial design.

Creating that thicker, wider base, however, will be a long process. Prasad Jasti, project manager for the bridge, said each of the 514-foot towers is broken into 16 sections. The concrete pours for each section should take about 20 days, meaning about a years worth of work to get the towers topped before the cable-stay bridge can be built.

What those cables and towers hold up, however, is different than initially planned. As part of the redesign to eliminate safety concerns, Trevino said officials opted to ditch the concrete forms that FIGG designed to put the bridge together like a very large piece of IKEA furniture in favor of steel beams topped with concrete.



www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

bwana39

I saw / read the cost of removing the partially built bridge pylons. I cannot seem to find it again, but what I saw was shocking.

Any idea why it was so much?
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

bwana39

They appear to be 90%+ finished with the approaches. Any idea where they are on the bridge plans?
Let's build what we need as economically as possible.

MaxConcrete

Quote from: bwana39 on November 17, 2023, 02:16:41 PM
They appear to be 90%+ finished with the approaches. Any idea where they are on the bridge plans?

I drove through a few weeks ago and I was not able to see the new bridge towers, which means they are still very low to the ground. So it appears that progress is slow on the main span. I have not seen any official status reports.

The official web page has not been updated since April 2020.

www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

MaxConcrete

The Houston Chronicle included the bridge status in a recent report.

It confirms what I reported in November, which is that no progress is visible yet.

The timeline for completing the project is long, early 2026 for the first span, which already has its approaches built. The soonest completion of both spans is 2028, but I'm expecting it to be behind schedule.

QuoteWork resumed on the biggest single public works project in Harris County history more than one year ago, but drivers along the Sam Houston Tollway can hardly tell the difference. Crews are still pouring the two massive foundations for the towers that will suspend the new taller, longer bridge spanning the channel.

Provided the project stays on schedule, the southbound span – the bridge is really two side-by-side structures – will be open by late 2025 or early 2026. Traffic in both directions will move to the new bridge, so the current span can be demolished and then the new northbound lanes built in the same place.

At the earliest, the bridge won't be fully built until 2028.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com



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