New US 51 - Cairo Bridge

[ilpt4u]

I ended up working late on Thursday so I didn't make it down to Cairo for the presentation...So no firsthand report here, unfortunately

[edwaleni]

https://www.wsiltv.com/news/transportation-officials-host-meeting-to-share-renderings-of-new-hwy-51-cairo-bridge/article_75c71f3a-400b-11ef-b7da-df955cc1abeb.html

For those who want to know what it it will look like.

Single Arch span over the Ohio main channel with pylon approaches at each end.

I will try to find a better rendering.

[Revive 755]

^The backgroun image on the project website might work:  https://us51bridge.com/

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

[Rick Powell]

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

[SGwithADD]

^The backgroun image on the project website might work:  https://us51bridge.com/

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

Here it is without the blue shading, to make things easier:

[SGwithADD]

... and of course just after I posted, I saw the meeting materials that were posted: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6be2cb12f53543a0a9dc564f0bb55aaf

Here's a flyover video showing the new bridge, and the new roundabout planned in Cairo (current schedule has a 2032 opening):

[edwaleni]

^The backgroun image on the project website might work:  https://us51bridge.com/

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

Thanks, I guess I was ahead of the game, the website had not been updated when I plowed through.

[seicer]

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

[edwaleni]

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

I looked at a group of bridges up and around Rock Island and none use dolphins. Probably because barges when lashed together tend to break apart when they impact an obstacle. There was a barge/bridge collision at Henry a few years ago and regardless, IDOT did close the bridge and perform an inspection.

While they talk about seismic resiliency (1000 year design) in the presentation, they don't really say what exactly is included in a 1000 year design. Deeper footings? Bushings/springs in the arch/pylon junctions? So many inches of roadway movement in the cable stays for sway?

Perhaps someone could explain where a 1000 year seismic design plays out versus the same design type over a river in North Dakota.

[hbelkins]

There's no protection for the piers on either side of the arch in that image.

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

I looked at a group of bridges up and around Rock Island and none use dolphins. Probably because barges when lashed together tend to break apart when they impact an obstacle. There was a barge/bridge collision at Henry a few years ago and regardless, IDOT did close the bridge and perform an inspection.

While they talk about seismic resiliency (1000 year design) in the presentation, they don't really say what exactly is included in a 1000 year design. Deeper footings? Bushings/springs in the arch/pylon junctions? So many inches of roadway movement in the cable stays for sway?

Perhaps someone could explain where a 1000 year seismic design plays out versus the same design type over a river in North Dakota.

KYTC does this every time there is a ship/bridge allision.

[Revive 755]

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

I thought the incident that downed the I-40 bridge near Weber Falls, OK, was a barge collision?  Or were there not any AASHTO vessel collision requirements when that bridge was built?

[Rick Powell]

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

I thought the incident that downed the I-40 bridge near Weber Falls, OK, was a barge collision?  Or were there not any AASHTO vessel collision requirements when that bridge was built?

The Webbers Falls collapse happened in 2002. The more stringent new vessel collision specs were put into place around 2000 (I remember because one of my projects was the first new bridge in IL to incorporate them and it was a PITA gathering all the information required). Unless that bridge was brand new at the time of the incident, it likely wasn't constructed with the more stringent collision protection requirements.

[seicer]

I can't find a document that references the specifications. Do you have a link or page number handy? Regardless, numerous new bridges have been built on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers without pier protection. It's not as if strikes don't occur, but they are usually with loose barges that don't do much damage when they do strike a pier. And the Cairo bridges do get struck quite often—but without much force, so a quick safety check is all that's needed (example).

I am curious as to the specifics of the Webbers Fall bridge. Pier collisions with barges are frequent, and adding pier protection to every bridge that has barge runs would be prohibitively expensive and unnecessary for the amount of collapses that do happen (my opinion). But nothing out of this seems out of the ordinary - did a barge hit the pier at just the right angle? Or were there piling issues that made the pier more likely to collapse?

[edwaleni]

I can't find a document that references the specifications. Do you have a link or page number handy? Regardless, numerous new bridges have been built on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers without pier protection. It's not as if strikes don't occur, but they are usually with loose barges that don't do much damage when they do strike a pier. And the Cairo bridges do get struck quite often—but without much force, so a quick safety check is all that's needed (example).

I am curious as to the specifics of the Webbers Fall bridge. Pier collisions with barges are frequent, and adding pier protection to every bridge that has barge runs would be prohibitively expensive and unnecessary for the amount of collapses that do happen (my opinion). But nothing out of this seems out of the ordinary - did a barge hit the pier at just the right angle? Or were there piling issues that made the pier more likely to collapse?

The Army Corp of Engineers had a website that had all the data and research from that bridge collapse, but it has been pulled down unfortunately.

[rte66man]

The design trend today for major river crossings is to build massive piers that often have 800 to 1000 cubic yards of concrete, counting the foundation, seal coat and pier stem. Usually when building piers to current AASHTO vessel collision requirements, no additional dolphins or protection cells are needed.

Pier protection is generally not a thing on many Mississippi and Ohio River crossings, too. Barges and rowboats don't do much damage, if any, on a collision.

I thought the incident that downed the I-40 bridge near Weber Falls, OK, was a barge collision?  Or were there not any AASHTO vessel collision requirements when that bridge was built?

The Webbers Falls collapse happened in 2002. The more stringent new vessel collision specs were put into place around 2000 (I remember because one of my projects was the first new bridge in IL to incorporate them and it was a PITA gathering all the information required). Unless that bridge was brand new at the time of the incident, it likely wasn't constructed with the more stringent collision protection requirements.

That bridge was originally built in the early 70's along with the McClellan-Kerr construction. I often wondered if I-40 construction was delayed so they could match up with the waterway construction as this was the last stretch of I-40 to open between OKC and Fort Smith.

US64 also got a new bridge replacing the old one-lane bridge in Webbers Falls. I remember waiting at least 2 traffic signal cycles to cross it (at least 20 minutes).

[MikieTimT]

I can't find a document that references the specifications. Do you have a link or page number handy? Regardless, numerous new bridges have been built on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers without pier protection. It's not as if strikes don't occur, but they are usually with loose barges that don't do much damage when they do strike a pier. And the Cairo bridges do get struck quite often—but without much force, so a quick safety check is all that's needed (example).

I am curious as to the specifics of the Webbers Fall bridge. Pier collisions with barges are frequent, and adding pier protection to every bridge that has barge runs would be prohibitively expensive and unnecessary for the amount of collapses that do happen (my opinion). But nothing out of this seems out of the ordinary - did a barge hit the pier at just the right angle? Or were there piling issues that made the pier more likely to collapse?

The Webbers Fall disaster was due to a towboat pilot blacking out and the tow going out of the channel, hitting one of the piers nearer the eastern shoreline.  The bridge didn't have piers built all across the river to withstand a tow strike and collapsed the eastern deck into the river.  It was a freak deal and I lost a friend, coworker, and fishing buddy to that tragedy.  Jimmy Johnson was headed west with his wife Misty and their young daughter, and were at the wrong place at the wrong time and drove off into the Arkansas River and drowned before they got traffic stopped after the deck collapsed.  It's his daughter that they put the memorial statue in honor of when they reconstructed the bridge in record time to reconnect I-40.

If you look on Google Maps' satellite view of the I-40 bridge now, they have dolphins upstream of all and downstream of nearly all the piers, not just the ones bookending the channel.  Likely a reaction to the casualties, but certainly not something that's common on all of the MKARNS, nor Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  There are significant dolphin installations on both of the major river crossings upstream of I-40 as well for US-64 and US-62.  Not so much downstream at US-59's crossing, which was also recently struck by a barge tow and closed for part of a day for inspection, but reopened without any repairs necessary.  Notably the KCS railroad bridge just downstream of it does have dolphins on the upstream side.  It all depends on pier strength, tow size and strike angle as to whether the gamble of having no dolphins at least upstream of piers is wise.

[seicer]

Practical Engineering covers this topic quite well, too. It comes down to cost, need, and likelihood of incident, among other factors. Worth a watch: https://youtu.be/zLOVv09n46g?si=j2E24A8ykYOP5gNR

[edwaleni]

IDOT and the ACoE has installed dolphins on every road and rail bridge over the Kaskaskia River bargeway from the Mississippi locks back to New Athens where the navigation ends.

[Rick Powell]

IDOT and the ACoE has installed dolphins on every road and rail bridge over the Kaskaskia River bargeway from the Mississippi locks back to New Athens where the navigation ends.

Conversely, none of the "new" structures on the Illinois River, which usually sees 10-20 barge tows a day, has any additional pier protection, and the former protective cells in a few locations like IL 178 and IL 351 were removed (they didn't line up with the new openings anyway). No additional protection at IL 47, IL 170, CH5 (Marseilles), IL 23/71, IL 178, I-39, IL 351, or IL 89. And even the I-180 and IL 251 bridges that were built in the 1960s. The rail lift bridges at "Divine" near Minooka (a fairly new bridge rebuilt in 2011), Seneca, and Ottawa, and the truss rail bridge at La Salle do have additional pier protection, but the truss rail bridge at Chillicothe des not.