Granite JV is safe at the rehabilitation of the Sacramento American River

American river buildersA joint granite construction company and Pleasanton -based California engineering contractors has been safe in the American River Bridge project of $ 131 million in Sacramento, California.

As the work has advanced over the last three years, workers have adopted a 20/20/20 approach, stopping their work every 20 minutes to perform a 20 -second exploration of the area of ​​20 feet around it. This has caused a single registered injury (a said right -handed right) for more than 100,000 hours worked.

In the light of Safety Week, the team celebrates an event today in the project, where in addition to the 3D BIM models and the unmolded chest, the crews have used a STCKY (things that can kill you) Danger Recognition Program to help achieve low injury rate. The work of Calerans began in 2022, with a completion of next spring.

Here, Bob Mihal, an executive of the Watsonville Grandite project in California, talks about the immersion of construction on how the job took place, a permit process that was unusually fast and steps that eliminated $ 85 million from the global cost of the project.

Publisher Note: This interview has been published for brevity and clarity.

Construction division: The American River Bridge, which carries the Business/Capital City I-80 motorway over the American river west of Sacramento, was originally built in 1954. What problems were emerging in the structure?

Bob Mihal: The original bridge was built as two parallel bridges separated in 1954 with a center widening in 1964, and the bridge roofs showed their age. Due to the severity of the transverse and longitudinal cracks of the roof, the concrete control and the elevated corrosive chloride content on the surface of the concrete roof, the bridge roof needed replacement.

To replace the roof, the superstructure was widened to accommodate traffic during construction.

What were the biggest challenges of this project?

Substructure work for the extension of the roof began in the spring of 2022 and we predicted that the overall completion of the project in the spring of 2026. There were several significant challenges, including work on a flooding plain sensitive to the environment, coordinating with multiple environmental agencies, as well as the United States Army Corps, which were originally built in terms.

The access to the work is a constant challenge, with a fleet of barge on the river, maintaining the access roads and work pills through several winters and providing material and workers to the median of the center between the traffic that flows heavy on both sides during the first stage of the reconstruction of the roof.

I understand that the JV could not work on the river from June to October. Why was this and how did you keep your job on the move, considering these parameters?

From November to May, Chinook Salmon and Steelhead are actively engaging. During these months we were restricted because we could not actively annoy the river or induce ball vibrations.

Outside that window from June to October, we were allowed to work from boats and inside the cofredams really. We have worked on restrictions through careful planning and aggressive programming.

Installing all sheet metal cofredams and the extension of the bridge at the first season before closing the river window in October was a large company, but critical to allow the construction of docks progress in winter. Collaboration with environmental agencies confirmed that work from boats and within the Deworeda cofferdams was not considered a “water” work.

The use of boats for access instead of a conventional temporary breakdown bridge was a significant measure of time saving that allowed us to complete the pile driving before closing the river window.

This contract was for a job in California, notorious for environmental delays and to allow delays, in a river with an active salmon race. However, you have been able to achieve it in just 12 months. How did you get it?

This was a great success for the process of collaboration of the construction/general contractor of the project. Our environmental permits experts worked closely with the Catrans environmental team and collaborated with the various agencies allowed to rapidly communicate the project’s work plans and address any problems before formal permit applications. This allowed the approval of quick permission and minimized the typical recoil process.

Why is the general constructions/contractor manager and how did this work be successful?

Unlike the traditional delivery of the project, where a design is completed before the owner selects the contractor, in a CM/GC project, the owner brings the contractor to the end of the preliminary design phase.

The contractor and the designer work together, according to the contractual coordination requirements, to complete the final design phase. In the work process through the final design, they can work together to identify more opportunities for savings and flexibility.

In the case of the American River Bridge project, one with a significant complexity and multiple stakeholders, collaborative hiring has been crucial for the success of the project.

Early permanence, aggressive programming and solving collaborative problems allowed the construction to begin two years earlier and maintained the project in time and budget, even with the important technical and environmental/environmental challenges.

In addition, the collaborative innovations developed during construction and construction planning have reduced the cost of the project by more than $ 85 million.

This project is currently over, but Granite has other ongoing infrastructure projects. How has the financing environment changed this year?

Work on this project is in progress and we predict that the general completion of the project in the spring of 2026. We see many strong opportunities in the Malgrat Macroeconomic uncertainties and the Federal Infrastructure Bill continues to support the growth of construction opportunities.

Some other details you want to argue?

The use of 3D modeling brought innovation: Caltrans usually gives us design drawings. We took the design and made a 3D model and used it for a highly accurate survey and field design. This reduced the survey requirements and provided other benefits of constructability, everything is better adapted.

Each time you build the foundations of the bridge on the river, affect the river. We decided to work on the barges instead of a trepid, which would have basically required a temporary bridge to build and had significant environmental impacts.

The river dredging to create boats for boats had a lower impact, saved time and was preferred by environmental permission agencies. This had a real benefit by 2023 during the great floods derived from the atmospheric rivers we experienced; A temporary trast could have been devastated.

Instead, we quickly moved the boats and teams to higher terrain and avoided the loss of equipment and environmental damage.

The new bridge will provide a multimodal connection between the city center and the east of Sacramento, including a class 1 bicycle route that connects to the existing bicycle routes.