Hard Rock No Obstacle For Bridge Construction
 
Challenging sub-surface conditions are making for slow-but-steady progress by crews drilling the remaining pier foundations for the new Turnpike bridges over the Pohopoco Creek in Carbon County.

With eight of the span's 12 piers in place, drillers are grinding through layers of rock in the streambed and banks of the creek to reach the required depths - some as far down as 40-feet below the surface - for foundations for the remaining four supports. When the foundations are in place, workers will then assemble formwork for the massive concrete pier stems and the "T"- shaped pier caps that will hold the new bridges' pre-stressed concrete beams and reinforced concrete deck.

 

 

 

 

 

The remaining pier foundations are expected to be in place by the end of December, allowing crews to finish construction of the remaining pier stems in the first quarter of 2010.
 
In addition to the piers, four north and south abutments (the end walls that connect the structures to the main line roadway) are nearing completion for the Pohopoco bridges. The bridges are on schedule for placement of pre-stressed concrete deck beams - some as long as 150-feet - to begin next spring.
 
Also at the northern end of the Turnpike work zone, construction continues on a retaining wall that will support the roadway where it shifts onto the new alignment approaching the new Pohopoco Creek Bridge.
 
 

Once all of the Pohopoco Bridge pier foundations are in place, the drilling rigs will be moved south to the banks of the Lehigh River. Work then will get underway as weather permits over the winter months to drill foundations for and begin construction of the piers for the new northbound and southbound structures at that location. A total of 19 piers will be built on the banks and in the streambed - some from temporary rock causeways that have been constructed in the Lehigh River.

Construction also continues on two abutments overlooking the northern bank of the Lehigh River. Work on the southern abutments for the Lehigh River bridges will begin when excavation finishes on the rock wall above the river's southern bank, where operations continue to scale-back that outcropping.
 
At that wall, thousands of tons of rock already have been blasted and trucked to the other side of the Turnpike, where it was used to expand the northbound shoulder. Northbound has been shifted slightly to the right onto that expanded shoulder. The southbound lanes were then shifted to the east as well, providing a work area for construction of the tie-ins from the new bridges, which are being built on new alignments immediately upstream of the existing bridges.
 
Work on all phases of Stage 1 construction on the $101.56 million contract to replace the separate northbound and southbound bridges carrying the Northeastern Extension (I-476) over the Lehigh River and Pohopoco Creek is expected to continue through the winter as weather conditions permit.
 
A separate but adjacent project to reconstruct the ramp bridge over the Turnpike at the Mahoning Valley Interchange (Exit #74) has been completed.
 
 General Traffic Impacts

 

• Periodic daytime and nighttime lane closures and brief daytime stoppages may occur on the Turnpike.
• Watch for slow moving construction vehicles entering and exiting the Turnpike.
• A long-term lane and shoulder closure is in effect on westbound Route 248 at the Turnpike overpass.

 

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