AASHTO Journal, 31 August 2012
The U.S. 60 Tennessee River Bridge at Ledbetter in Kentucky will be ready for traffic more than a year ahead of schedule thanks to the implementation of an accelerated completion plan.
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officials joined Gov. Steve Beshear to announce last Thursday that the state is accelerating construction of the bridge, which sits between Paducah and Ledbetter, in order to allow drivers to get back to their regular commutes much faster.
“We will cut a minimum of nine months off the estimated completion date of the project,” said Gov. Beshear in a statement. “But even better than that—we should be able to have two lanes of traffic on the new bridge by May 2013—14 months ahead of schedule.”
The new four-lane bridge is set to be completed by Oct. 31, 2013 instead of its original date of July 2014. However, the project’s contractor, Kay & Kay/Haydon Bridge Joint Venture, can receive up to $3.8 million in incentives if it can open two lanes of the bridge to traffic by May 1, 2013. For every day past that May 1 deadline, the contractor loses $19,000 of that bonus. The entire project is projected to cost $94 million.
The old Ledbetter Bridge is still in use, though restrictions have been made on weight and speed limits due to the deterioration of the 80-year-old bridge. These constraints, especially the weight limits, have proven difficult for local businesses and farmers, so the accelerated construction of the new bridge will be beneficiary to the community.
“We think this agreement strikes a balance between the costs of using law enforcement to assure traffic is obeying the 3-ton limit and 35 mph speed limit, as well as ongoing maintenance required on the old bridge, and the need to restore truck traffic for businesses that depend on this river crossing,” said KYTC Secretary Mike Hancock in a statement. “This is a common sense approach to maintaining a critical river crossing.”
Additional details of the accelerated schedule for the U.S. 60 Tennessee River Bridge will be announced through the next couple weeks.