PACIFIC NORTHWEST EDITION
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June 7 2020 Vol. II • No. 12
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded in 1957.” Your Pacific Northwest Connection – Patrick Kiel – 1-877-7CEGLTD – pkiel@cegltd.com
‘Rest of the West’ $455M Project Starts to Take Shape By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
With two new gantry cranes towering against the sky, there’s no doubt a $455 million project outside of Seattle is well underway. It’s part of a program the Washington DOT (WSDOT) calls the “Rest of the West,” a series of projects for the remaining $1.6 billion in improvements to SR 520. The Montlake Project is the first on the list and will depend greatly on four gantry cranes, two of which were just constructed. “They are capable of picking up 100 tons,” said Steve Peer, media manager of WSDOT. “The tires are six-feet tall, so when someone stands next to them you can really get the magnitude of it. Each crane is 55-feet tall and 95-feet wide. Because the highway they are building is a bridge over Lake Washington, the contractor is building two work trestles on either side of the existing highway bridge. The trestles will provide a track for the gantry crane tires and crews will use the gantry cranes to first remove the old 1960s bridge structure with two lanes and later to build a new three lane highway bridge.” First, crews will saw cut the girders from the old bridge to get them ready to be removed, then the gantry cranes will pick them up and take them off site to be
The project required crews to saw cut the girders from the old bridge to get them ready to be removed.
processed. Taking them off site eliminates the need to break them up to be processed over the lake. Along with the gantries, there are numerous other cranes on site, Peer said, noting, “It’s like a crane ballet out there sometimes and the
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contractor is conducting a highly coordinated dance.” The Montlake contract was awarded to Canada-based Graham Contracting who is working with American Bridge. It involves replacing an existing west
approach bridge built in the 1960s that is believed to be at risk of failing in a severe earthquake. The east approach that carries westbound lanes also was rebuilt and finished in 2017. “They built that differently,”
Peer said. “They used a bigger work trestle and even had barges floating below to remove and replace that bridge. It was a different, more cumbersome way of constructing it.
2010 BOBC CA AT A T T320
2006 K KOMA OMA AT TSU W WA380 A380-5L
2008 JOHN DE EERE 410J TC
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2007 PETERBILLT T 357