Moving something that weighs four million pounds seems impossible. Now imagine the four million pound object is 670 feet long and 55 feet above the Gasconade River. Well, MoDOT likes to make the impossible… possible.
The westbound lanes of the I-44 Gasconade River Bridge needed to be replaced and so to minimize motorist impact, MoDOT utilized an innovative method of bridge construction called bridge jacking. This method includes building a new bridge deck on a temporary substructure right next to the existing bridge, and when the new bridge deck is finished, sliding the new addition into place using hydraulics.
This amazing feat closed the westbound lanes of the I-44 Gasconade River Bridge for just 19 days, while traditional bridge reconstruction methods would have closed this same stretch for at least 60 days. Talk about a traffic headache reduction!
1 comment:
Not to mention doing all of this during a deluge. Good job!
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