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June 19, 2012
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June 19, 2012A convoy of cement mixers delivers material for crews spreading concrete Friday as work progressed toward completion of a new Prospect Bridge across Bayou Terrebonne between Main Street and Park Avenue on Houma’s east side.
The $26.7 million project began on May 4, 2010 with a targeted completion date of August 2012. That projected opening has been pushed to Sept. 1, according to Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development project engineer Chris Rogers.
“We’re pretty close to finished,” Rogers said. “We are placing concrete for the bridge deck. Then we have the remaining road work on Prospect Street between Bayou Terrebonne and East Park Avenue. Once that is complete we will put on the wearing course of asphalt on Main and Prospect streets on the south side of Bayou Terrebonne.”
Bonder course asphalt is currently in place on the surrounding roadway at traffic levels. A final layer was withheld so as not to be damaged by heavy equipment during construction.
Once completed, the 75-foot tall lift-span bridge will be able to manage six lanes of traffic. Intersecting roads will become wider as they lead to the bridge. Extra left-turn lanes and through lanes will be present at traffic signals where crossroads meet. New traffic arms and signals are included as part of the project.
The bridge will include a dedicated sidewalk on the east side of the bridge deck.
Traffic signal troubles with the lights at Prospect Street and Park Avenue are unrelated to this project, but will be addressed with a new lighting system.
“The poles we are putting up will replace a pole that keeps getting hit [by traffic] and damaged [causing signal reduction to a red flashing light],” Rogers said. “The intersection will have new signals.”
Rogers said the most challenging part of this project has been to remain on schedule.
“It was a tough schedule to maintain,” he said. “It is a very complex project. There are a lot of specialty parts that had to be manufactured that came from different parts of the country. Some of those items had to be machined to very tight tolerances. In fact, that is where the delay came from.
“For example, the small gears that drive the big gears you see on top of the bridge had to be taken down and a thousandth of an inch of material had to be shaved off the faces of those gears,” he explained. “Little things like that happened during the course of construction. It never goes exactly as planned.”
Other delays to the project included critical path items during the beginning of construction. “You hope that during the course of time you can make up lost days, but it didn’t happen,” Rogers said.
The Prospect Bridge project is expected to relieve congestion for more than 18,000 drivers daily traveling that route. Primary contract work has been performed by James Construction Co.
“There is a lot more work involved than many people think in making a bridge go up and down,” Rogers said.
