Tag Archives: Audubon Bridge

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design, Industry News and Events

ENR’s Best of the Best 2012–Audubon Bridge

ENR Logo

 

The John James Audubon Bridge was recently selected as the Editor’s Choice/Transportation for ENR’s Best of the Best Projects for 2012.  The annual competition culminated in honoring ENR’s selection of the most outstanding construction projects in the U.s. And Puerto Rico complete between July 2011 and June 2012.

Nearly 1,000 project teams submitted their best work to ENR’s regional "Best Projects" competitions. For each of the nine regions, our editors assembled an independent panel of industry judges to home in on the winners in 19 categories. The winners of the regional contests moved on to the national competition. A different set of industry judges examined the projects to distinguish the "Best of the Best" in teamwork, success in overcoming challenges, innovation and quality. This year, a new award honors the safest project, judged by industry safety experts in both the regional and national competitions. Also, ENR’s editorial staff chose one special project as the "Editors’ Choice" to represent the pinnacle of design and construction excellence.

The Audubon Bridge won the Editor’s Choice – the editorial staff’s selection of the “pinnacle of design and construction excellence”.  Congratulations to everyone at Audubon Bridge Constructors (Flatiron, Granite and Parsons), Louisiana DOTD, and all who worked on the project!

Regular readers of our blog will be very familiar with the JJA as we often called it.   You can catch all of the geotechnical and foundation highlights on our project page, or check out previous posts.

Images from: ENR.com

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design

Audubon Bridge Officially Complete!

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Photo Credit: enr.construction.com

The John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana was officially completed February 27, 2012.  The bridge was opened to traffic in May of last year, but was declared officially completed last month.  This bridge has a special spot in the heart of DBA as it was one of the early large bridges we worked on as a company.  Steve and Dan poured their energy and expertise into the project starting in spring of 2006, all the way to completion of the last foundations in 2010.  Steve spent a good part of his life on site during foundation construction.  I spent a fair amount of time there myself helping Steve cover things now and then, including observing the soil borings for the main tower piers during the design. 

The JJA (as we like to call it) was the subject of one of my early posts when we started this blog in early 2006.  You can scroll through the many posts made during our work on the project here, starting with the soil boring program.

From the press release posted on the TIMED Audubon Bridge site:

Construction on the John James Audubon Bridge has officially come to a close. The new Mississippi River crossing is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, with a 1,583’ main span. Located in south-central Louisiana, the Audubon Bridge connects West Feliciana Parish with Pointe Coupee Parish and is the only bridge between Baton Rouge and Natchez, Mississippi. Construction on the $409 million project began in 2006 and continued when the bridge was opened in May 2011 due to high water levels closing the St. Francisville Ferry sooner than expected.

"Although the Audubon Bridge has been open to traffic for nine months, it’s with a great sense of accomplishment that we are announcing the end of construction on this beautiful structure," said Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Sherri H. LeBas, P.E. "The completion of this bridge opens economic development in south-central Louisiana and will be a source of regional, statewide, and national pride."

Dan ran across this blog entry from Angelle Bergeron, a freelance writer in New Orleans writing as the New Orleans correspondent for Engineering News-Record.  Check it out.

Personally, I look forward to making a trip through the area and getting to cross this beautiful structure.  Hats off to Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Construction, Granite Construction and Parsons Transportation Group, for a job well done!

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts

Audubon Bridge Foundations in Fall 2011 “Deep Foundations”

DFI Fall 2011_Audubon

Dan and Steve co-authored an article in the Fall 2011 issue of Deep Foundations (from DFI) that covered the foundations for the recently completed record-setting Audubon Bridge in Louisiana.  Dan and Steve cover not only the shaft testing, design, and construction, but also the unique cofferdam used for the tower foundations.  I recently highlighted an article by Sereno Brown, P.E. of Flatiron that covered the design and installation of the cofferdam in detail. 

You can receive Deep Foundations every quarter (soon bi-monthly!), as well as the DFI Journal, by joining DFI.  Get information on joining at this link – click on “Membership” at the top banner.

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design

Audubon Bridge–Cofferdam Construction Article

LA-Civil-Eng-JJABridge

As noted earlier on this blog, the Audubon Bridge opened a little bit earlier than planned.  Although over a year old, an article recently came to my attention that puts a spotlight on the unique engineering and construction that went into the cofferdams for the two main bridge piers in the Mississippi River.  The article is “John James Audubon Bridge Project – Cofferdam Construction for the Main Span Pier Foundations”, published in the February 2010 issue of Louisiana Civil Engineer, the Journal of the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The article’s lead author, Sereno Brown, P.E., was the construction team’s Project Engineer for the design-build project.  In the article, Mr. Brown outlines the issues that led to the team selecting a pre-cast concrete cofferdam over other methods, the design methodology, and then the construction of the cofferdam.  The effort posed several significant design and construction challenges, including the sequence of lowering the cofferdam into place through a set of hydraulic jacks. The entire process was truly an amazing engineering and construction feat.

Download the article here.

Drilled Shafts, Miscellaneous

Audubon Bridge Opened To Traffic (earlier than planned!)

The John James Audubon Bridge was opened to traffic on May 10, 2011 a little earlier than planned.  While the project is not 100% complete, the bridge was sufficiently complete to allow an emergency opening due to closure of the nearby ferry the bridge is replacing.  From the project website:

Due to the high level of the Mississippi River causing the closure of the New Roads/St. Francisville ferry, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) opened the John James Audubon Bridge at 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 5, 2011. This emergency opening allowed continuous river-crossing access for traffic affected by the ferry closure. The ferry, which carried approximately 720 vehicles per day according to 2009-2010 DOTD statistics, is permanently closed with the opening of the Audubon Bridge.

Construction is still ongoing and could affect traffic until the project is 100% complete later this year.

Drilled Shafts, Load Testing

Audubon Bridge Closure–The Span is Complete!

On December 29, 2010, Audubon Bridge Constructors recently “closed” the main span of the John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana.   Watch the video featured at the top of the page at the bridge link to hear about the bridge, including the drilled shaft foundations!  For something really fascinating, go to the webcams here and scroll back through the various dates.  They have archived images all the way back to start of construction.

Photo: Chris Usery, Figg Bridge Inspectors

The last cables were installed on January 3, 2011 as noted on the project website:

 

The last two cable stays of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were installed on January 3, 2011, five days after the spans were connected. The John James Audubon Bridge, Louisiana’s newest crossing over the Mississippi River, now has all of its 136 cable stays in place.

This bridge will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America when it opens later in 2011.  Again, from the project web site:

The spans of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were connected on December 29, 2010, stretching 1/3 of a mile over the Mississippi River. The John James Audubon Bridge, connecting Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana parishes in Louisiana, is approximately 92% complete. Construction of the spans began from both sides of the 500-foot tall towers earlier this year. Both sides continue to progress at a rapid pace, and now the meeting of the spans has occurred.

Steve Dapp and I had the pleasure of working with many great people during our time on site (much more time for Steve than for me!) during foundation construction.  One of them, Chris Ursery of Figg Bridge Inspectors, has been great about providing us with photos now and then to keep us updated of some of the details of the bridge construction.  Chris has granted us permission to share a few of his recent photos, which are shown below or can be seen in our web albums here.

Previous post on Audubon Bridge.

Drilled Shafts, Site updates

Audubon Bridge Update – Piers out of the water!

It has been a little while since we last visited the John James Audubon Bridge site in New roads, Louisiana.  My how things have changed!  I just have a couple of pictures of the piers from January – it is really looking like a bridge now!  For frequent updates, check out the webcam and the photo albums on the project web page.  The web cams have a really cool time lapse button that shows you a time lapse loop of the pier from the beginning of construction.

UPDATE (2/28/10) – I added 3 new photos to the slide show that were taken this last week. At that time the piers were at lift 21 and were about elevation +335 feet (the top of the sheet piles at the foundation level are about elevation +50 feet).