First-of-its-kind Jamaica Ave. bridge on the home strait

Real Estate Weekly, August 8, 2007

HNTB Corporation designed the roll-in/roll-out highway bridge replacement of Jamaica Avenue Bridge over the Van Wyck Expressway.

The first of its kind in New York State, the bridge is in the final stages of construction and is scheduled to be completed at the end of this year.

The project, which began as a conventional bridge replacement, quickly evolved into a landmark proiect, saving the surrounding community years of traffic congestion due to construction.

Hired by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), HNTB began to evaluate the project and it soon became evident that conventional staged construction would create a negative impact on local traffic due to high volumes on the expressway, avenues and on this highly developed area in Queens.

Drawing upon HNTB's extensive experience nationwide, a plan was devised to modify the design and provide the first-ever, roll-in/roll-out highway bridge replacement in New York. The goal was to roll the bridge into its final position within one weekend.

Constructed in 1950, the Jamaica Avenue Bridge was a two-span, steel structure and carried electrical lines, a water main, gas pipes and telephone lines. Maintained and owned by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), the bridge today is over one of the heaviest traveled highways in the Northeast, and is the major trucking line between LaGuardia Airport, Kennedy Airport and the Long Island Expressway.

In an area where high local volumes reach more than 1,100 vehicles per hour, the benefits of the roll-in/roll-out approach to the surrounding community are immense and include the reduction of overall construction time by at least two years; elimination of structural deficiencies; improvement of overall bridge safety; and improvement to the flow of traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway by adding breakdown lanes and resurfacing the roadway.

The roll-in/roll-out system consisted of constructing the new superstructure adjacent to the existing bridge.

Using temporary support bents, a new superstructure was built next to the existing bridge. Although this system of construction is common for railroad bridges, where extended closures are not practical, it was never before attempted in New York for a highway bridge.

"HNTB was privileged to provide the New York State Department of Transportation with the engineering expertise necessary to fast-track the replacement of Jamaica Avenue Bridge," said Tom Potts, PE, associate vice president at HNTB New York.

"Recognizing the difficulty in closing and detouring traffic on Jamaica Avenue for an extended period of time, HNTB recommended an innovative roll-out/roll-in solution whereby the entire bridge superstructure could be replaced over the course of a single, three-day weekend."

By providing this alternative, there is now a potential answer for clients and consultants, who want to reduce overall construction time, move forward on a substructure and super structure concurrently, improve the quality of the new structure and mitigate the impacts on communities and traffic.

By using this method, HNTB was able to simultaneously work on both the bridge structure and on the Van Wyck Expressway which included the resurfacing of all six lanes, the widening of segments by addition of acceleration/deceleration lanes in both directions, improvement of safety on the Van Wyck Expressway with fullwidth flush shoulders and upgrading of drainage, lighting, ITS, signing and landscaping.