The East Coast has its fair share of dealing with extreme weather patterns, so the reliability of our transportation infrastructure is of constant concern. Transportation construction is heavily widespread throughout the warmer seasons of late March through early November in our region. Along with our degrading road conditions, new travel pathways are created to improve traffic patterns and divert heavily trafficked areas with roundabouts, and new roads that run adjacent to previous infrastructure.
Following federal mandate codes, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) inspects approximately 44% of all bridges and roads in NYS. NYS requires that all highway bridges be inspected every two years, by licensed transportation engineers. While inspecting bridges, if an engineer deems one “poor”, or previously “structurally deficient”, the bridge will require a posting of weight limits, significant maintenance, and repair to remain in service. Eventually rehabilitation or replacement is required to maintain structural integrity”. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are over 25,400 state-owned highway bridges, and contains the third largest number of bridges, per state, in the nation. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) uses bridge preservation activities such as painting, deck repair, and joint replacement. Similar to NYSDOT, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) preserves their bridges through painting, deck repair, and joint replacement, as well as using “good, fair, or poor” to determine the current condition of their bridges.
HUNT provides a broad range of transportation engineering services, including roadway and bridge design, highway and interchange design, construction administration, construction inspection, and project management. We have worked on hundreds of transportation projects in New York and Pennsylvania, including bridges, culverts, overpasses, road systems, and pedestrian safety design. These projects involve both maintenance rehabilitation and new-build structures.
One project that HUNT recently completed was the Tile Kiln Road Bridge over Big Salmon Creek; Town of Venice in Cayuga County NY. The project was funded through the BridgeNY program. BridgeNY, which is part of Governor Kathy Hochul’s five-year Capital Program to transform New York’s transportation infrastructure. The Tile Kiln Bridge was deemed in poor condition, so HUNT replaced the existing single-span adjacent box beam structure with a new 55-foot-long prestressed concrete adjacent box beam superstructure. The new superstructure is supported by integral abutments founded on concrete piles. HUNT assisted in planning for replacement of the structure and delivering the BridgeNY funded design. The horizontal alignment was maintained, while the vertical alignment was raised to improve bridge hydraulics. This project also included highway approach work, new guide rail, and new signage.
The HUNT team displayed their exceptional engineering and design capabilities throughout the full Tile Kiln Road Bridge project, from preliminary design to final implementation. The project team also demonstrated timeliness and professionalism through management of construction and bidding administration and construction inspection services. Our engineers and architects combine modern solutions with functional design, ensuring that the HUNT mission to act as "entrusted partners providing full-service expertise inspired by innovation, practical by design, and community focused" is apparent in every infrastructure project we take on.
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