Orange Avenue Bridge Tallahassee Florida

<figure id='attachment_8106' style='max-width:1457px' class='caption alignnone'><img class="size-full wp-image-8106" src="https://www.geoinstitute.org/sites/default/files/geotech-tools-uploads/…; alt="Photograph of the completed Orange Avenue Bridge." width="1457" height="1092" /><figcaption class='caption-text'> Figure 1. Completed Orange Avenue Bridge.</figcaption></figure>Location: Tallahassee, Florida Owner: Florida Department of Transportation Year Constructed: 2014 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Numbers: 550171 Crossing Type: Roadway bridge over trail Superstructure Type: Adjacent Precast Concrete Boxes Span: 60 feet Maximum Wall Height: 16 feet Maximum Wall Face Width (edge to edge): 36 feet Skew: 30 degrees Facing Type: Segmental Retaining Wall (SRW) Average Daily Traffic (ADT) (when constructed): 20,000 Contract Type: In-house design Unique Project Feature: Bridge spans over a trail; FDOT was the first in the country to develop its own plans and specs for GRS-IBS; high ADTBackground: The Orange Avenue Bridge is located in the city of Tallahassee in Leon County, Florida (see figures 2a and 2b). The bridge was built in 1949 and crosses over the Tallahassee-St. Marks Trail, a historic railroad state trail popular with pedestrians and bicyclists. The Tallahassee-St. Marks Trail stretches for about 20.5 miles from Tallahassee, Florida’s state capital, south to the coastal community of St. Marks. The scenic trail is frequently used for running, walking, biking, and skating. In addition to its proximity to the trail, the Orange Avenue Bridge also serves a nearby elementary school.<figure id='attachment_8108' style='max-width:1056px' class='caption aligncenter'><img class="wp-image-8108 size-full" src="https://www.geoinstitute.org/sites/default/files/geotech-tools-uploads/…; alt="Sketches of the project location. To the left, location of Tallahasse, Florida and to the right, the Orange Avenue Bridge. Source: Open Street Map, ESRI, FHWA." width="1056" height="532" /><figcaption class='caption-text'> Figure 2. (a) Location of Tallahasse, Florida and (b) the Orange Avenue Bridge. Source: Open Street Map, ESRI, FHWA.</figcaption></figure>Prior to replacement in 2013, the Orange Avenue Bridge was a deteriorating trestle bridge that needed to be replaced (see figure 3). The bridge had 25-foot spans on timber piles and crossed diagonally over the Tallahassee-St. Marks Trail with about 21 feet of clearance. To make the Orange Avenue Bridge safer for motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, the bridge needed to be widened to add a sidewalk and bike lanes and the vertical curve needed to be reduced. Additionally, new drainage was needed for the curb inlets of the bridge’s new approaches. Given the bridge’s location along a heavily used route close to a school, it needed to be replaced quickly over the summer while school was not in session. To replace the bridge in such a short timeframe, Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) decided to use Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Integrated Bridge System (GRS-IBS).<figure id='attachment_8107' style='max-width:845px' class='caption aligncenter'><img class="size-full wp-image-8107" src="https://www.geoinstitute.org/sites/default/files/geotech-tools-uploads/…; alt="Photograph of the Old Orange Avenue Bridge. Source: FDOT." width="845" height="553" /><figcaption class='caption-text'> Figure 3. Old Orange Avenue Bridge. Source: FDOT.</figcaption></figure>Deployment: The Orange Avenue Bridge was designed in-house by FDOT engineers. Consultants were hired by FDOT for surveying related work, roadway design, and project management. Replacing the Orange Avenue Bridge increased the safety of bridge users by reducing the vertical curve to improve sight distance and widening the bridge to accommodate a proper sidewalk and bike lanes. Other features of the new GRS-IBS bridge included a 60-foot span superstructure composed of adjacent precast concrete boxes and a 30-degree skew. The GRS walls were constructed using locally available Segmental Retaining Wall (SRW) block and had a height of up to 16 feet.Project Challenges and Solutions: The Orange Avenue Bridge faced some minor challenges related to the GRS-IBS technology and general construction practices. The challenges and solutions described below were an important part of this project as they generated valuable lessons learned.Battered walls and corner blocks Initial design requirements for the Orange Avenue Bridge called for a vertical wall with Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU) blocks. The availability of CMU blocks that met the required specifications and had a required strength of 4,000 psi was limited. Given the lack of availability, engineers decided to instead use locally available SRW blocks that had the required strength of 4,000 psi and met the other requirements. The manufacturer confirmed that the SRW blocks could be produced without batter. At the end of the design stage, the shop drawings submitted by the contractor included battered walls which was not consistent with the initial design requirements. Although not in the initial design requirements, the contractor was allowed to construct the walls with the batter. Constructing with a batter made it difficult to fit the corner blocks as the run length for each course of block got shorter from bottom to top, revealing that it would have been easier to cut and form angles with solid, rather than hollow, blocks. As a result of this experience, solid blocks are used to fit the corners of battered walls in the subsequent GRS-IBS projects in Florida. Most SRW blocks have a batter and can be accommodated in the wall layout to address the issues at the corners. Project shop drawings need to indicate how the corners will be addressed based on the facing element selected by the contractor.Overlapping geotextiles in reinforced soil foundation (RSF) During construction of the RSF, on-site engineers noticed that some of the geotextiles were not properly trimmed and were excessively overlapping (figure 4). The overlapping geotextiles created slippery interfaces, which were likely to cause stability issues in the presence of lateral pressures once the abutments and bridge were constructed. Additionally, excessively overlapping geotextiles created difficulties for setting even rows of blocks. This problem was resolved by close communication with the contractor to ensure that the RSF geotextiles were properly cut to avoid excessive overlapping.<figure id='attachment_8109' style='max-width:594px' class='caption aligncenter'><img class="size-full wp-image-8109" src="https://www.geoinstitute.org/sites/default/files/geotech-tools-uploads/…; alt="Photograph of the overlapping geotextiles in RSF." width="594" height="331" /><figcaption class='caption-text'> Figure 4. Overlapping geotextiles in RSF. Source: FDOT.</figcaption></figure>Strict construction schedule Given that the Orange Avenue Bridge needed to be replaced quickly, minimizing construction time was a priority. With that in mind, FDOT created an incentive for the contractor to complete the project early and allowed the contractor to collect up to $537,500 for completing the project 20 days ahead of schedule. The contractor finished the project 23 days ahead of schedule, three days earlier than maximum incentive date, and collected the full incentive. One of the measures taken by FDOT to deliver the project early was the timely procurement of adjacent precast concrete boxes under a separate contract; this allowed FDOT to avoid potential construction delays. In total, the Orange Avenue Bridge was closed for only 48 days. Such a quick construction time minimized inconvenience, allowed the trail and road users to quickly resume their normal routines, and ensured the bridge was completed far before the school year began.Conclusion: The Orange Avenue Bridge was a successful project and it has received two awards. The project earned the Florida Transportation Builders Association (FTBA) award for Quality Construction in the Alternative Contracting Category in 2015. Additionally, that same year, the Orange Avenue Bridge earned an award in the small project category from the Florida Institute of Consulting Engineers (FICE).The Orange Avenue Bridge is not the only GRS-IBS bridge in the state of Florida. Since completion, FDOT has built another GRS-IBS structure and became the first in the country to develop their own GRS-IBS design guidance documents. These documents have helped other counties in Florida construct their own GRS-IBS bridges.Project Contact: Larry Jones Assistant State Structures Design Engineer and State Geotechnical Engineer Florida Department of Transportation <a href="mailto:cmeehan@udel.edu">larry.jones@dot.state.fl.us</a>(850) 414-4305Project Technical Paper: A technical paper has not been published for this project.REFERENCES“Florida Manages Orange Avenue Bridge with GRS-IBS”, National Concrete Masonry Association, Concrete Masonry Designs, 2016. Retrieved from: <a href="http://cmd.ncma.org/florida-manages-orange-avenue-bridge-with-grs-ibs/"…;. Accessed April 18, 2017.“Orange Avenue over St. Marks Trail”. American Consulting. Retrieved from: <a href="http://www.acp-americas.com/projects/cei/orange-avenue-over-st-marks-tr…;. Accessed April 18, 2017.Anchor®, “GRS-IBS incorporating VERTICA® Retaining Wall Systems - Orange Ave Bridge, Tallahassee, Florida (promotional pamphlet). Retrieved from: <a href="http://www.anchorwall.com/design-ideas/project-profiles/orange-avenue-b…; Accessed April 18, 2017.Daniel Alzamora, phone conversation with the author of this document, May 16, 2017.Florida State Parks, Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail – Web Page. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.floridastateparks.org/trail/Tallahassee-St-Marks">https://w…;. Accessed June 27, 2017. Larry Jones, “FDOT In-house Design using GRS-IBS” (presentation, Southeastern Transportation Geotechnical Engineering Conference (STEC) 2014).Larry Jones, phone conversation with the author of this document, June 29, 2017.

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Technology

Mechanically Stabilized Earth Wall System