U.S. 59 Gateway

Project Details

WB was the Prime Contractor to the Texas Department of Transportation on this $36.5M reconstruction project. The U.S. 59 Gateway project widened nearly a mile of freeway close to downtown Houston.

In 1998,construction began for the addition of two high-occupancy vehicle lanes and two travel lanes as part of an effort to increase capacity throughout the corridor. Four continuous post-tensioned concrete bridges spanning the freeway first needed to be replaced to provide space for a cross section, and to accommodate construction traffic control for the 250,000 vehicles per day that use the freeway. Increasing vertical clearance also was key: Due to deficient clearance under the bridge, high loads frequently struck the existing Hazard Street underpass, and its outside lane and sidewalk had been closed to traffic for more than a year as a result.

The four distinctive steel tied-arch bridges clear span over 224 feet over the freeway. They carry two lanes of traffic, two bicycle lanes, a utility parapet in each direction and sidewalks outside of each arch. Their total widths are 60 feet each.

The arches, 45 feet apart, are fabricated from steel plate and braced with rectangular HSS. The deck is composed of full-width precast and pre-stressed panels that are post-tensioned and overlaid with composite concrete. Tied arches were chosen as the structural system for aesthetic reasons, and steel was cost-effective, quick and simple to erect.

The deck is composed of full-width precast and pre-stressed panels that are post-tensioned longitudinally and overlaid with composite concrete. The bridge is founded on soldier-pile retaining walls on each side of the depressed section. Forty-eight-inch-diameter drilled shafts spaced at 5’ were used for the retaining wall.

Awards

• 2007 National Partnership for Highway Quality (NPHQ) State Award
• 2003 American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) Globe Award
• 2003 Texas Construction Best of 2003 Award for Transportation
• 2003 National Partnership for Highway Quality (NPHQ) Special Recognition Award
• 2003 Texas Quality Initiative (NPHQ) Special Recognition Award for Innovation
• 2003 AGC Build America Award, Special Recognition for Highway Renovation
• 2003 National Steel Bridge Alliance Prize Bridge Competition for Medium Span Category
• 2003 TXDOT Texas Project Award

Each bridge crosses the freeway at a small but slightly different skew angle. TxDOT engineers avoided complicated detailing of skewed bridges by increasing the bridge length slightly and recessing the square ends of the bridges into the embankment at each end. All four superstructures are exact duplicates, resulting in economies in design, fabrication, and construction. The length of the new bridges enabled construction of the abutments without affecting the existing bridges or impacting traffic.

The steel for the new tied-arch bridges was constructed in place over the existing bridges and then each old bridge was demolished using controlled explosions on five separate weekends. The reconstruction was completed 30 days ahead of schedule with a cost savings of $420,000, despite encountering such hurdles as Tropical Storm Allison. The storm dumped more than 38 inches of rain in one week-end, filling the freeway with an estimated 100 million gallons of floodwater from Houston’s bayous. The project team met the challenge and had the freeway cleared, cleaned and reopened in time for the Monday morning rush hour.