Expressway links shape up
Although the entire Uniontown-to-Brownsville link of the Mon/Fayette Expressway won’t be open to traffic until the spring of 2012, the good news is that a couple of the sections currently under construction are ahead of schedule. On Monday, Joseph G. Brimmeier, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, led a group of officials that included state Sen. Rich Kasunic, D-Dunbar, on a tour of the expansive project that included stops at various construction sites along the highway’s path.
Michael S. Houser, engineering project manager, with the Turnpike Commission outlined the status of the project.
The first phase included construction of 7.5 miles of highway, construction of four miles of state road and contracts totaling more than $197 million.
In that project, there were six highway construction contracts; four toll plaza construction contracts; eight bridges; 400,000 square yards of concrete pavement; 200,000 square yards of bituminous pavement; 200 million pounds of structural steel; 13 million cubic yards of excavations and the creation of a new 4.5-acre wetland and protection of existing wetlands.
The section that will be the last completed is a bridge being built over the Monongahela River, connecting Fayette and Washington counties. The bridge, originally slated for completion in the fall of 2011, is now expected to be done by the spring of 2012.
Problems with concrete in one of the piers set back the construction when the pier had to be demolished and begun anew.
“They had issues with caissons and concrete,” Houser said.
The $95 million bridge includes six piers, three on either side of the river in Fayette and Washington counties. Originally designed as steel, the contractor, Walsh Construction of Cranberry Township, proposed an alternative concrete structure, which is slowly taking shape.
When complete, the four-lane bridge will be 90 feet wide, 200 feet tall and 3,000 feet long. The 15-foot sections of the bridge are poured using a machine called a form traveler that sits atop the piers. To date, there are 18 out of the 195 sections cast for the bridge.
The crews pour the concrete on alternative sides of each pier, going halfway to the other pier before moving on to another pier to pour the sections out from that pier. Cables in the concrete will hold all the sections together.
Crews are working six days a week on the bridge, including two shifts Monday through Friday and one shift on Saturday, Houser said.
As workers sat atop one of the piers and poured concrete in 15-foot sections on Monday, the tranquility of southwestern Pennsylvania wildlife remained a short distance away as six wild turkeys gathered at the bottom of a nearby hill.
For the current phase, there are six contracts including 7.7 miles of new highway, with contract bid amounts at $306.6 million.
Kasunic said the project is the largest being completed in the United States today, and some of it is ahead of schedule.
“Two sections are going to be done early, one by almost a year and second by several months,” Kasunic said. “In this industry, that is almost unheard of.”
The two sections that are ahead of schedule are 51 F and 51 G, located in Redstone and Luzerne townships, respectively. Each of those sections include about a mile and a half of highway.
Another link, Section 51A1, located off Route 119 near Uniontown, will be finished by the end of 2010 and open this year. That section includes ramps that go over Route 119.
A maintenance center will open by May 2012.
Traveling along the construction sites, some portions, including bridges, are nearly finished, while some areas are still dirt.
At one point along the construction, one piece of heavy equipment was leveling off the ground and spitting the dirt into an enormous dump truck.
Houser said after the ground is prepared, six inches of sub base is put down, followed by four inches of asphalt, and followed by a top layer of 12 inches of concrete.
Kasunic maintains the section that is already open shaves 15 minutes off the time of traveling from Uniontown to Brownsville.
He also pointed out that the Turnpike Commission ended up making quite a few improvements for the local municipalities and the state Department of Transportation. The improvements include construction of local roads and bridges, and even using fill to help the Nixon Gun Club address safety issues.
“It’s all quite impressive. It is amazing how it all came together from looking at a plans and working it out to seeing it,” Kasunic said.
Brimmeirer said it would have been unfortunate if the money weren’t obtained to complete the link. He said this year there are $1.2 billion in projects all along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and 11,700 jobs have been created or maintained.
Because the bridge will be finished about six months after the other sections, Brimmeirer said the Turnpike Commission may open the other sections, which could be in the fall of 2011.
The last West Virginia section, which will stretch down near Interstate 68, is slated for completion and opening in the spring of 2011. Although it was originally set to open this year, a change in which toll plazas are being built have pushed the opening back.
When the West Virginia and Uniontown-to-Brownsville portions are opened, there will be 60 continuous miles of road going from Morgantown, W.Va., to Jefferson Hills, outside Pittsburgh.