B&N was retained by Jefferson County, Ohio to replace the steel beam superstructure of the Unionport Road bridge over Cross Creek along with approximately 400 feet of approach roadway reconstruction, minor widening, and vertical realignment on an accelerated schedule.
The fascia beams were severely deteriorated, forcing the County to load-restrict the bridge and reduce traffic to a single lane. The concrete pier also was in poor shape, with a large shear crack through the cap. Detailed design plans were developed within a few months to allow construction of the proposed structure before further deterioration would require the County to close the bridge.
Due to the expedited time frame, B&N requested a preliminary design meeting with Jefferson County and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) District 11 to gain quick approval of the project scope and environmental requirements. It was determined the two-span, steel beam superstructure would be replaced with a single-span, steel beam superstructure since the pier could not be reused and avoiding pier work would minimize the required environmental documentation, approvals, and permits.
The profile was raised three feet on the east approach to improve the profile to ODOT standards. The raising, coupled with the widening, presented a challenge for reusing the abutments. No record plans of the bridge were available; however, soil borings for the adjacent pedestrian bridge confirmed the abutments were founded on rock, and in good enough condition to be reused. Lightweight, foam cellular concrete fill was used to raise the profile and not increase the soil pressure on the existing abutments. The use of this material allowed the design of small, concrete, gravity retaining walls along the edge of the approach slabs, eliminating the need to modify the wingwalls. Minor modifications were made to the abutments to allow for the profile raising and conversion to semi-integral.