PACIFIC NORTHWEST EDITION
A Supplement to:
®
May 9 2021 Vol. V • No. 10
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.” Your Pacific Northwest Connection – Patrick Kiel – 1-877-7CEGLTD – pkiel@cegltd.com
The SR 167 Completion Project will see 6 mi. of highway rebuilt by Guy F. Atkinson crews and will complete the unfinished SR 167 corridor near Tacoma at a cost of $41 million.
A new bridge over Washington’s I-5 is slated to open to traffic early this summer — the first construction milestone and major component of a new expressway project in the Seattle/Tacoma area. The new bridge and nearby roundabout to SR 99 — being constructed by Guy F. Atkinson crews — are essential steps for the SR 167 Completion Project, which will build 6 mi. of highway and complete the unfinished SR 167 corridor near Tacoma. The SR 167 Completion Project is part of the estimated $2 billion Puget Sound Gateway Program that includes the SR 509 Completion Project near Seattle. Both projects complete two crucial unfinished links in Washington State’s highway and freight network. Combined, the projects will provide essential connections to the ports of Tacoma and Seattle and help ensure people and goods move more reliably through the Puget Sound
By Lori Tobias
CEG CORRESPONDENT
Area region, according to the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) website. Construction Details The $41 million contract for the new bridge and roundabout also includes building 400 ft. of new pedestrian/bicycle-friendly Interurban Trail that will directly access the shared-use path on the bridge. The funding for this project is included in the estimated $2 billion that funds the entire Gateway Program. “An important consideration for WSDOT was the movement of freight between Fife [Wash.] and the Port of Tacoma inside this busy freight corridor,” said WSDOT spokeswoman Laura Newborn. “The old bridge has a traffic light at SR 99 and there are frequent backups over the Interstate. The new bridge connects to a roundabout at SR 99 and keeps traffic flowing.” Construction of the replacement bridge in Fife called for
moving 10 223-ft.-long precast girders into place across the interstate. These girders are among the longest precast girders ever made. They were constructed nearby at Concrete Technology Corporation in Tacoma, which made transportation of the massive girders possible. The only girders longer than the ones on the 70th Avenue East bridge replacement are girders slightly south on a WSDOT project spanning the Puyallup River. One of those girders, installed for an HOV project, is 4-in. longer. During girder setting, large trucks moved the supersized girders onto I-5, where cranes lifted them into place over the interstate. “We had a Demag AC 1600 [650 ton capacity] and a Grove GMK7550 [550 ton capacity],” said Megan Dunn, project engineer with Guy F. Atkinson Construction, the design-build contractor. “Both cranes are all-terrain cranes, meaning they drive to their pick location and set up utilizing see COMPLETION page 10