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>>"For this project, from the very beginning, the early concepting of this
particular bridge, we chose a standard bridge - a three-span bridge.
We've got
thousands of these types of bridges across the country.
So, the technology, the lessons learned on this project, we'll be able to apply
throughout
our system." >>"The unique thing about this bridge, as I said, the construction
duration is only two weeks --
from the time that they close the road to traffic,
until they have a completely new bridge in place and the road road re-opened.
If this bridge was constructed
the conventional way -- the way we've always done bridges -- it would take four to
six months. >>"We need to broaden
our viewpoint and our analysis of what costs matter when we're
thinking about how much we ought to spend.
When you do a construction project faster, it almost always will cost more.
But those may very well be dollars that are well spent if you're really stepping
back and doing a thorough economic impact analysis of what's happening."
>>"The users of the highway are paying more money for each minute or each hour that
they are delayed in their trip.
They're consuming gasoline and diesel fuel.
The opportunity cost for the time lost is money lost to them.
So overall,
this short closure will probably cost far less money in total
than the longer closure."
>>"SHRP 2 brings forward innovation,
and
we're really looking for States to be willing
to be innovative, and and we think it's the right thing in in this time."
>>SHRP 2 is really important because it's another
major national initiative for these needed technologies
in renewal. We are facing an aging infrastructure. Our resources are really
challanging as far as people, as far as money, and as far as needs.
And, SHRP 2 can really help us with a lot of the technologies that we need to
implement
in order to make the best use of the money that we have available --
in order to make sure that we're following the best practices, the best
engineering decisions that we can." >>"SHRP 2 program will do the research, do that
homework up front,
so the State can pretty quickly
take what they've done and actually implement it in the field.
Contractors -- the unknown, means a
higher bid that you'll probably get. So,
with SHRP trying to do these demonstration projects,
we'll get
the information out there on how they work,
get some of the kinks out, and give that comfort level to States to move forward."
>>"There's always some risk of being first,
being on the leading edge in trying something.
And, there's a learning cure in there that you have to kind of shake it
out a little bit
as you go through trying a new technology or a new process. So, whoever
goes first
takes on a little bit more risk in doing that.
We think, when that leader is working side-by-side with the Federal Highway Administration,
we can bring some extra technical expertise to that State that they might
not have. It makes it easier maybe for the leading State to take that that first
step and say 'We'll be first. We'll try it.'
And that's a really critical part of something like SHRP 2:
is having a State,
or a few States, who are willing to say 'We will go first.'"
>>"A lot of people have ideas,
but how do you know if they're going to work or not going to work? You learn
in your failures as well as your successes, and so somebody needs to try
it. This research takes a lot of ideas -- cumulative needs of people in the industry
across the country -- and says let's look at trying it. So, it's its information
that's gleaned, that's priority information, and then the implementation
can go that much further to benefit a lot of people."
>>"If we're calculating the impact of travel delay and what that means to the overall
economy,
and then we're putting that up against
the cost of research and innovation, we're gonna find that research and
innovation is very cheap indeed."
>>"Once you standardized the processes,
the price comes way down.
Once you learned how to
build bridge elements -- precast bridge elements
so that they can be moved by standard equipment
on a highway project,
then again the cost comes down again.
The goal of the SHRP 2 project,
the R04 project,
is
simply to
make
accelerated bridge construction an everyday process."
>>"One of the values of this particular project is that
it's not particularly exotic; it is common structural elements, materials,
but these are the kind products, if this technology is implemented a little more
broadly,
that contractors can have,
be comfortable bidding on this.
Agencies will be comfortable
designing these kinds of projects and looking for -- not just waiting for the right
application to come along, but actually looking
for applications where this might be repeated time and again because that's where
you'll get your savings." >>"Parts of it are real unique.
I'd say 85-90 percent of it is just another bridge.
And that's the way we approached it.
Yeah, it's in pieces -- precast -- we've done precast before; we'd
set precast beams all the time.
Now it was a whole different set of challenges.
But as far as building the bridge in the way we decided to do it, building it on-site
was probably the most unique thing that we did. But I'd say 85
to 90 percent of it is just
a bridge just like
lots others we've built, but it's in 18 pieces
in the superstructure, and then 8 pieces down below --
2 abutments,
2 pier caps, 4 columns.
And then the drilled shafts it sits on."
>>"From the very beginning some of the design decisions that were made we
wanted to make sure that
our local contractors were going to be able to build a bridge like this one, so
that helped us decide what the superstructure was going to look like and several
of the other design decisions.
I think that's very important because we don't want to do research
that's a one of.
I'm not real interested in looking at something that we're just gonna try once.
Why would we put money, time, and effort and expertise into that if we're not looking
for the long haul with these opportunities?"
>>"We can't afford
to let our roadways
be incapacitated because of construction projects.
And so the faster we can go, it's clearly valuable. When it really matters we put
very big incentive and disincentive clauses into our construction
contracts. And there's no question when we do that we're likely to pay more
money, but it is clear that it is worth paying that money to get the contract
finished and wrapped up and get the contractor off the roadway sooner."
>>"What you're goona see is more and more States moving to
new techniques, faster techniques.
I think the public is gonna demand it. And you're gonna have to be able to balance
that public need with the funding that you have and the
resources that you have." >>"This project and this kind of technology can be used
as it proves itself throughout the country to rapidly replace
bridges and structures in very critical positions, and help provide the
economic
commerce, the opportunity for transportation to exist
and continue along these routes whether it's locally or even regionally."
>>"The 23 years I've worked
with the D-O-T,
it's been interesting. We all look at
projects like this, or really even standard projects --
these are our projects. Everybody has ownership for that, and it's always
like that. The people that live in this area that use this bridge, it is
their bridge.
And so, I think it's very satisfying.
Everybody that has worked on this project from all the agencies from all
the levels within the D-O-T
do consider this project their project, our project, and
very good decisions have been made on this project, and and it is a successful
project. And it's just a testimony I think to
the way that we want to work together,
and the way that we want to
serve the public.
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