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Vol. VII • No 10
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Mosquito Road Bridge Work Requires Unique Techniques By David Holzel
CEG CORRESPONDENT
Tall and majestic, the Golden Gate Bridge rises some 200 ft. above the water line separating San Francisco from Marin County, California. One hundred and ten mi. to the northeast, the Mosquito Road Bridge stands twice as high — the roadway is a full 400 ft. over the South Fork of the American River gorge in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Planned for completion late this summer, the $74 million Mosquito Road Bridge project ($102 million, including overall costs), a 1,200-ft.-long cast-in-place balanced cantilever bridge, will connect Placerville and Swansboro, two communities in rural El Dorado County. It replaces a smaller wooden suspension bridge built in 1939. The old bridge will be retained for foot and bicycle traffic. In addition to meeting 21st-century transportation needs, the new bridge will accommodate the growing tourism industry in the area and increase the ability of first responders and wildfire teams to reach their communities quickly. Because the site is so remote, and the bridge is so tall, Irvine-based Shimmick Construction Co. Inc., deployed unique construction techniques and special equipment for the project, Project Manager Charles Marrow told Construction Equipment Guide. “The unique construction technique on this job is the cast-in-place balance cantilever construction of the superstructure,” he said. “A lot of bridges are built traditionally, where you build a complete falsework system to support the construction of the entire bridge. You build your bridge superstructure and then remove the falsework system. The Mosquito Road Bridge, in contrast, is built segmentally in 15-foot increments using a modular traveling formwork/ falsework system that starts at the columns and works to the bridge ends.” Designed by SYSTRA International Bridge Technologies in partnership with Quincy Engineering Inc., the Mosquito Road Bridge includes two 12-ft.-wide lanes with 5-ft. shoul-
Because of its height and remote location, the 1,200-ft.-long cast-in-place balanced cantilever Mosquito Road Bridge required special construction techniques and equipment.
ders and a 54-in.-high barrier. The superstructure of the bridge is made up of more than 68 cast-in-place cantilever segments, with the two ends of the box being cast on falsework, and the deck of the bridge receiving a polyester deck overlay, according to Shimmick. Marrow said Shimmick still has several steps to take before the project is complete. “We’re finishing up the superstructure of the bridge over
the next two months,” he said. “That would essentially finish the main structure component. Beyond that, it’s a dozen different things all at once: We remove our temporary crane trestles. We do some permanent erosion control. There are a couple of final drainage systems, drainpipes that need to be installed in the ground surrounding the structure itself.” see MOSQUITO page 6