The Oregon Department of Transportation is beginning to spend some of the more than $5 billion in transportation funding approved by the 2017 Legislature.

Currently, ODOT is for an Interstate 205 paving project expected to cost between $5 million and $10 million. The scope of work includes grading, drainage, structural reconstruction, paving, signage, illumination, signals and roadside development for a stretch of I-205 between the Route 224 Sunrise Expressway and Southeast Sunnybrook Boulevard.

The project team includes Marianne Zarkin Landscape Architects, Reynolds Engineering, Global Transportation Engineering and the Portland Design Group.

The project cost range value is preliminary. Completion of the project is tentatively planned for May 2020.

Bidders (prime contractors) must submit a prequalification application. Bids are due by 9 a.m. on Nov. 8.

Learn more about the project by emailing ODOT project manager Jamie Miller at jamie.n.miller@odot.state.or.us.

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A wetlands system project that saved the city of Prineville tens of millions of dollars took top honors Wednesday night at the 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards event hosted by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Oregon.

In winning the Project of the Year title, the Crooked River Wetlands project, submitted by Anderson Perry & Associates and the city of Prineville, also claimed the right to advance to the ACEC Engineering Excellence national awards competition.

Judges for the local competition gave the wetlands project high marks for providing both an affordable solution that protects the environment and the community with valuable lessons in conservation and stewardship.

The project was the result of a population boom in Prineville that severely taxed the city’s existing wastewater treatment system. Rather than invest $62 million in construction of a traditional mechanical facility, the city approached Anderson Perry & Associates to identify alternatives. The firm’s team designed a series of wetland cells that treat wastewater before releasing it back into the environment. The wetlands area, which ended up costing approximately $8 million, includes walking paths and pavilions as well as informational kiosks created by local schoolchildren.

Parametrix scored two wins during the Wednesday evening event. The company earned the award for Best Small Project for its work on the Deschutes River Trail Boardwalk, a collaborative project with Oregon Parks and Recreation Department staff. The company also stepped forward with Kittelson & Associates to claim a Best in Category award for their respective work on the U.S. 20 Barclay Roundabout for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

KPFF and GRI scored a Best in Category award for their combined work on the Cultural Crossing, an expansion project at the Portland Japanese Garden.

Five firms received Grand awards for work on four projects. Nishkian Dean received one for its work on the commercial crew tower capability project at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. PAE‘s Grand award resulted from its work on the Oregon Zoo Education Center. Shannon & Wilson and HBH Consulting Engineers teamed up for their award-winning Southern Flow Corridor project for the Port of Tillamook Bay and Tillamook County. OBEC Consulting Engineers received its Grand award for work on the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge for the city of Salem.

Sixteen other projects received Honor awards.

The awards were selected by a jury of building industry professionals that included Mark Kennedy, associate dean and professor of civil engineering in the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering at the University of Portland; Tova Peltz, region 1 geo-environmental unit manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation; Nick Bjork, publisher of the Daily Journal of Commerce; Mark Hanson, chief of the structural and architectural design section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers‘ Portland District; and Ermel Quevedo, a past president of ACEC Oregon.

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Sometimes excellence comes in a flash of inspiration. Other times, it requires decades to take a concrete shape.

More than 40 years from idea to conception, the Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge may fit solidly into the latter category. But now that the Salem structure is a reality, it’s winning accolades and attracting positive attention.

The most recent recognition came from the American Public Works Association‘s Oregon chapter, which named the bridge its 2017 Project of the Year for projects in the $5 million to $25 million range.

Courtney, now Oregon Senate president, was a member of the Salem City Council in 1975 when he suggested building a bridge to link downtown Salem with Minto Island and Minto-Brown Island Park.

The idea languished for the next two decades until development of Salem’s Riverfront Park, a project that restarted conversations about the bridge. Several years later, the 2009 completion of the conversion of the Union Street Railroad Bridge to suit pedestrians and bicyclists spurred formation of a nonprofit called Friends of Two Bridges (F2B) – a group dedicated to bringing Courtney’s ideas to fruition.

As fundraising for the Minto Island bridge began in earnest, Aaron Kimsey stepped into the role of senior project manager for the city.

“It took another three years to get funding,” Kimsey said.

Working with an estimate that the bridge would cost $10 million, money raised by F2B was added to dollars from state and local sources including the Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon Parks & Recreation, Business Oregon, the Salem Keizer Area Transportation Study and Salem’s Urban Renewal Agency Board.

“Through that process, the (Salem) City Council selected a design.” Kimsey and.

Guy Hakanson, vice president of technical services and chief engineer at OBEC Consulting Engineers, and senior project manager Bob Goodrich, OBEC division manager of bridges and structures, turned the design concept into reality.

“It was fascinating from a structural engineering perspective – very elegant,” Hakanson said.

The arches of the 305-foot-long, tied-arch bridge bow out from center. The resulting linear flow becomes almost visually weightless, as though the bridge were floating. Lighting is attached to the arches in a linear manner that follows the form of the structure so that it becomes even more ethereal at night.

“It’s visually deceptive … (and) very unique,” Hakanson said. “The weight of the deck actually holds the arches in dynamic tension. The idea is about connections. This is the final link that (along with the Union Street Railroad Bridge) connects three parts of one community. The bridges are a reiteration of that. I’ve been privileged to work at OBEC for 31 years and this is the coolest (bridge) I’ve worked on.”

Construction of the bridge, which spans the Willamette River, was handled by Stayton-based Legacy Contracting and began in 2015. Before ground was broken, though, more than a dozen permits had to be obtained. A slew of agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard, had to approve elements of the design and the construction plan to make sure there would be no negative effects on the environment or boat traffic. Work was confined to designated periods so as not to obstruct or affect river traffic or migrating fish runs. Care also had to be taken to protect wetlands surrounding Minto Island, much of which is in the floodplain and critical wildlife habitat.

The official opening of the Minto Island bridge earlier this year created the final link in more than 30 miles of off-street trails over nearly 1,400 acres of parks – a total area greater than New York’s Central Park. Each day, approximately 2,000 people use the bridge, Kimsey said.

“The response has been overwhelming,” Hakanson said. “I think it will forever change the skyline of downtown Salem – the lights, the shape – and don’t forget that Minto Island is a park. There’s really nothing there but green space, wildlife and trails, so it’s a destination and not just a thoroughfare. People love the lights too. It’s already an iconic part of Salem.”

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In the early days of the 20th century, civil engineers were in an arms race to find the best ways to open a bridge.

One novel method was tried out by engineer Ralph Modjeski for Portland’s , completed in 1913. A Rall mechanism employs giant, 8-foot-diameter steel wheels that roll along tracks high above the center of the bridge.

To explain the mechanism’s complex movement to the uninitiated, it helps to have visual aids, said Jon Henrichsen, Multnomah County‘s division manager for bridges.

“It’s one weird, elliptical motion; it’s much easier to show with pictures, or, better yet, a video,” he said. “This is a very complicated bridge – way more complicated, really, than it needs to be. You can build a simpler bridge that’s easier to maintain and more reliable.”

Like an evolutionary dead end, the was en vogue for only about a decade before simpler, more efficient and economical systems took over. The Chicago-type bascule would become the standard of the style, an example being the Burnside Bridge. But in 2017, the Broadway Bridge and its unique design are still vital to Portland and the 32,000 people who cross the span daily. And now, after a century of rolling back and forth, its .

The four massive wheels have turned more conical than round, and cracks are showing up.

“There’s just a lot of issues with these,” Henrichsen said. “It’s time to replace them.”

The county has contracted with Springfield-based Hamilton Construction to replace the Broadway Bridge’s one-of-a-kind Rall wheels and the tracks and bearings, and rehabilitate the trunnion, control struts and associated structures. It’s a complex undertaking that requires a highly specialized skill set, and it presents its own engineering challenges – how to lift the bridge to swap out the wheels? How to make them?

To change the wheels, the Hamilton team is lifting the entire bridge, one 1,000-ton leaf at a time. Bridge engineer Ed Wortman likens the problem to jacking up a truck to change its tires, but in this case, no place on the bridge is hard enough to set the “jack.”

“It wasn’t designed to be lifted up into the air as we’re doing now,” Wortman said.

The solution created by OBEC Consulting Engineers of Eugene is a lift system that uses the stone and concrete piers under the bridge for bases, and thick steel plates welded to the bridge. Two 900-ton capacity jacks will work together to push thick posts upward.

This will all go on while bike and vehicle traffic and the Portland Streetcar are moving across the bridge.

“They’ll only lift it just enough to get those wheels out,” Wortman said. “Then it’s just like changing the tire on a car.”

Wortman was a bridge engineer for Multnomah County starting in the 1990s, but he began working on bridges in 1960. He’s worked part-time since his retirement in 2007, and was on site this month checking progress on the project.

“We always thought we were going to have to change these wheels, and we thought the designer probably made some accommodation for it,” he said. “Then we started looking at it, and it turned out, it wasn’t that easy.”

Ultimately, Wortman said, the decision to use the design was a financial one – it was slightly cheaper than the other two alternatives. Despite any trouble, it actually has done its job – creating the widest possible opening for ships – quite well, he said.

“It was a complicated system, but clever – but also, hard to maintain,” he said. “It’s pretty special. There’s not another bridge like it in the world.”

Each wheel supports about two million pounds of weight. But those wheels have been rolling back and forth for more than a century. The wheels are solid hunks of steel that start out about 30 to 40 percent larger before being pounded into shape. In 2017, not much metal is forged west of the Mississippi River, but VEGA contracted with Peninsula Iron Works to make the forgings.

The 88,000-pound wheels were forged – not cast, as were the originals – at Peninsula Iron Works. The original wheels had cored holes in them like spokes in a bicycle wheel, which helped make them considerably lighter. They were pounded out on the shop’s vertical boring mill, which was manufactured in 1968 but features modern automated CNC controls. They were flipped three times, and shipped on trucks with special permits.

“This is probably more accurate than they were done historically,” said James Johnson, president of Peninsula Iron Works. “Your big advantage today would be in how the materials were manufactured, compared to a casting.”

Johnson and his brother are the third generation to operate Peninsula. The fabrication shop performs 3,000 jobs per year. For this one, they were subcontracted under Vigor, which prepared plans and shipped the materials for the forgings. At more than 100 years old and the only shop like it on the West Coast, Peninsula aided the Allied war effort in World War I and mills serving the Pacific Northwest lumber industry. Its handiwork can be found nearly everywhere in the Portland area – including on all five movable bridges.

Once the new wheels are on, much testing will be needed to ensure they’re aligned with each other and the tracks are oriented perfectly. Among the updates incorporated into the project is breaking up the big metal struts that connect to the control room and pull the bridge open. Breaking them into three pieces, instead of one, makes for easier adjustments.

There will be one, final 48-hour closure over a weekend when final testing will be conducted. Once the old wheels are off, they will likely be shipped to a recycler, though the county has been in talks with the Regional Arts and Culture Council about using one in a public art installation, Henrichsen said.

In Modjeski’s day, bridges had much shorter life spans – maybe 20 years for the Broadway, Henrichsen said. The original operators of the bridge didn’t even grease its gears.

“He’d probably think we were crazy to still be operating this bridge,” Henrichsen said of Modjeski.

But a complete bridge replacement project would cost between $300 million and $400 million, and significantly impact commuters.

“After all these years, it still works well,” Wortman said. “So you can’t question the decision to build it in the first place.”

Broadway Bridge Rall wheel replacement

General contractor: Hamilton Construction

Cost: $13.5 million

Construction start: July

Expected completion: December

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OBEC Consulting Engineers, based in Eugene, has earned national recognition from the American Council of Engineering Companies for a recent bridge project.

The firm received a National Recognition Award in ACEC’s 2015 Engineering Excellence Awards for the design and construction engineering of two dual concrete arch spans carrying Interstate 5 across the Willamette River between Eugene and Springfield. The Oregon Department of Transportation‘s Whilamut Passage Bridge opened to traffic in August 2013.

In January, OBEC earned a Grand Award for the nearly $205 million project in ACEC Oregon‘s 2015 Engineering Excellence Awards. This qualified the firm to compete in ACEC’s national Engineering Excellence competition, which honors the year’s most outstanding engineering accomplishments. Entries are evaluated by a panel of judges from the industry as well as representatives from government entities and the media.

OBEC President Lawrence Fox will travel to Washington, D.C. to accept the national award during an awards gala on April 21 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park hotel, OBEC spokesman Matt Sevits said.

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A Eugene-based engineering firm has formed an informal industry group to lobby for state and federal funding of infrastructure improvement projects.

OBEC Consulting Engineers‘ marketing department recently launched the Infrastructure Fan Club and is seeking more industry professionals to join the group. Club members appreciate roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and want to see those structures improved and maintained, said Josh Grenzsund, OBEC marketing manager.

“We have the idea to make it an industry group that was not specific to a single company, but more of an industry space,” he said.

Grenzsund said the group provides an engaging way to build public awareness of the importance of funding infrastructure improvements. and accounts for the fan club feature links to news articles, photos and videos that highlight infrastructure-related issues and projects. Members can also proudly proclaim their love for infrastructure with official club badges, T-shirts and other swag.

“The audience is really everybody who uses and benefits from infrastructure,” Grenzsund said. “We take it for granted. It’s time to realize that it’s time to reinvest if we want to keep enjoying it … Nobody likes taxes, but nobody likes a bridge that comes down.”

Grenzsund said he plans to soon travel to Salem for a “Day at the Capitol” for engineers, architects and construction contractors, and distribute Infrastructure Fan Club T-shirts. He wants to raise awareness about the group and its cause.

“It’s possibly a conversation-starter,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to engage citizens and hopefully the legislators.”

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SUBMITTED?BY: OBEC?CONSULTING?ENGINEERS

OBEC Consulting Engineers faced three problems in the design and construction of the Weaver Road Extension, a bridge spanning the Umpqua River that connects the town of Myrtle Creek with Interstate 5.

In addition to providing critical habitat for spawning salmon and populations of steelhead and cutthroat trout, the bridge is an important link to intersecting I-5 with Highway 99. Initial excavation revealed the bridge is located in an area containing Native American archaeological material.

The project team designed an elegant S-curve, steel-girder bridge. A large, above-ground gravel pad limited stresses in the soil, avoiding ground disturbance to subsurface artifacts and reducing in-water work impacts.

Matt Garrett, the director of the Oregon Department of Transportation, recently said that, “Bridges are the art of connection.”

The completion of the Weaver Road extension improved emergency access for the area, helped ensure economic growth for Myrtle Creek by providing easy access to I-5, and preserved the nearby archaeological site as an important link to the past.

PROJECT?TEAM + STATS:
Location: Douglas County
Cost: $17 million
Owner/developer: Douglas County
Engineer: OBEC Consulting Engineers
General contractor: Capital Concrete Construction

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SUBMITTED?BY: OREGON?DEPARTMENT?OF?TRANSPORTATION, MAJOR?PROJECTS?DIVISION

The Interstate 5 Willamette River Bridge stands as an example of an all-inclusive effort that not merely met, but exceeded expectations on multiple levels.

The Oregon Department of Transportation sought public involvement from the start through open houses, social media and participatory groups in a project that illustrates a bridge as more than a structure spanning a divide.

“It’s impressive when you first see it,” said Jeff Firth of Hamilton Construction.  “It’s sleek, skinny, elegant, and from a construction standpoint, presses engineering boundaries, sequencing parks, the cities, bikes, rail and traffic.”

The structure incorporates three distinct methods of bridging – reinforced box, reinforced deck girder and signature arch span – with a focus on addressing the task of a transportation feature while considering environmental and public concerns.

The nearly 1,800-foot span is situated in a complex urban environment, crossing railroad tracks, a four-lane highway, and a river with sensitive habitat for trout, salmon and chub.

ODOT worked with the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde to recognize the significance of the bridge named “Whilamut”, the Kalapuya word for “where the water ripples.”

The double arch touches down once in the riverbed with minimal disruption to a sensitive natural environment. The strong, but lightweight bridge also shares accolades with the new World Trade Center building in New York as recipients of 2013 Slag Cement Association Project of the Year awards.

Completion of the Willamette River Bridge project restored and enhanced a vital transportation link in the highway connecting the Western U.S to Canada and Mexico.  At the same time, it has made travel easier for local drivers and has improved access for emergency vehicles and commuters between two vibrant Oregon communities.

PROJECT?TEAM + STATS:
Location: Eugene – Springfield, Oregon
Cost: $204.6 million
Start date: May 2008
Completion date: August 2013
Owner/developer: Oregon Department of Transportation
Engineer: OBEC Consulting Engineers
General contractor: Hamilton Construction Co.

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When it comes to design concepts for structures to handle tsunami-type emergencies, Cannon Beach city officials have pretty much seen the gamut.

This past fall, city councilors were considering as many as eight different alternatives. The front-runner was a new, $4.5 million city hall that would double as a tsunami evacuation building.

The 10,000-square-foot, two-story reinforced concrete structure would be elevated on pretensioned concrete pilings. During a tsunami, as many as 1,500 people would be able to wait out high waves inside the building.

The idea petered out.

“That (idea) is a very difficult one for people to accept,” Cannon Beach Councilman Sam Steidel said. “For the most part, they just don’t trust it.”

Steidel said that any city project to mitigate tsunami danger would need to be financed by a locally supported bond measure, so public buy-in is essential. With support for the city hall idea waning, Steidel said the city is now targeting construction of a new evacuation bridge across Ecola Creek.

The existing bridge represents the only viable escape route for downtown residents to reach safer, higher ground in the event of a tsunami. However, a one-two punch of an earthquake and a tsunami would likely cause the bridge to collapse.

Kevin Boyle, project coordinator for , the company hired to conduct a feasibility study, said that in addition to being founded on shallow wood pilings, the existing bridge is held together by weak, steel pins that connect the concrete slab to its foundation.

“The concern is if they have a big earthquake … those could potentially rip the pile cap apart and cause the bridge to collapse into the creek,” Boyle said. “There is just a very high probability of liquefaction of the soils in that area too.”

It has happened before. The 1964 Alaska earthquake sent a tsunami rippling up Ecola Creek, destroying the bridge and causing $250,000 in damage, according to OBEC’s report.

Part of the solution to ensure that doesn’t happen again, Boyle said, is to conduct a full geo-analysis of the soils and drive concrete pilings to necessary depths. But the city first needs to choose from among seven options, which range in scope from a $796,000 floating pedestrian bridge to a $4.76 million replacement bridge.

The first option, which Boyle said was requested by the city, is a floating timber pontoon bridge with a 6-foot-wide deck. That bridge would withstand a large earthquake, but it would not resist a tsunami wave. Boyle said it had another key drawback too.

“For a 6-foot wide bridge, if there’s a panic situation you really create a lot of chaos trying to get people across that in one way,” he said. “You just can’t pass that many people.”

The second option, a 6-foot-wide fixed timber bridge, faces the same issues.

Other options include constructing a 12-foot-wide, fixed, pre-stressed concrete pedestrian bridge; replacing half of the existing bridge with a concrete section; and building a fixed timber suspension bridge.

While some of those options have more merit than others, all share the same hurdle.

“All of those have fairly significant costs associated with them for a small community,” Boyle said. “Cannon Beach is not a community that necessarily has a lot of money.”

The feasibility study alone cost approximately $10,000.

One potentially affordable concept is for a pyramid-shaped berm near the city center. Yumei Wang, a geotechnical engineer at the , said it would cost between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Wang said the berm represents the second draft of a conceptual platform evacuation structure (like a multistory carport for people). It would essentially be a large, sloped dirt mound that people could run up to escape rising waters.

Steidel said City Council had not reviewed that idea yet.

One thing the city is pushing forward though, Steidel said, is creation of stores of food and water around town that people can access in the event of an emergency.

“If all the roads are down and the Willamette Valley is hit hard, we’re not going to see people for quite a while and so we’ll be dependent upon ourselves,” he said.

But Cannon Beach residents also have in their hands the opportunity to choose an evacuation measure.

“One of the things that is difficult about this is there are many ways to skin a cat and to have the community decide on one is difficult,” Wang said.

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