With the successful installation of five 395-foot steel gutters long last month last month, an area of $ 660 million, 2.5 miles from the Express Intersate-495 lanes, in Virginia of the Virginia North, now enter the house.
Using cranes with a maximum capacity of 500 tonnes, the crews installed the beams, consisting of 10 beams, on the I-495 in a north direction to support a new ramp of express lanes as part of the 495 nearby project during The last weekend of January. Each beam is 11 feet high and 3 feet wide, weighing between 70 and 80 tons. The beams include a new ramp on the I-495 exchange with the Dulles Toll road that leads to Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County.
“This was far from a typical step,” says Richard C. Mayo, Lane Construction Corp. Senior Project Engineer, the Transurban Design Design Contractor, which has a public-private dealership agreement with a The Virginia Department of Transportation. Subcontractor Shirley Contracting Co. He directed the exchange of exchange. Due to the dense urban environment and events such as the presidential inauguration, “we concluded that we wanted a one -week operation instead of dividing the work into several weekends,” he says. The team met weekly with the interested parties for more than a year related to the weekend planned “Big Beam”, he adds.
A dense urban environment in the I-495 area in northern Virginia led to the decision to place exchange beams in a weekend.
Photo courtesy vdot
Made by High Acid Structures LLC in Lancaster, Pa., The five “lines” of the beams consisting of four pieces each, required a complete set and dismantling in the courtyard before transport to Virginia to be outdoor spalry for an open air. Personalized lifting platform.
“The beams reached their parts due to their height,” says Michael Trabucco, Vice President of Shirley. On arrival at the site, they were downloaded and stood vertically. “They could be staged, collected and configured three segments of each beam line; the fourth [curved] The piece was staged in trailers, “he says. Temporary beings were built and configured around the existing I-495 alignment. The crews built a third temporary tower to support the beams in case of Serious wind and placed up to 2 feet of material to flatten the surface of the cranes belt.
Trabucco adds the activities of the weekend “Time per hour”. Decisions managed regularly at four registration locations to determine if they continue to move on. Without feared severe wind, the crews completed the installation 2.5 hours before and returned the lanes to Vdot at 2:30 am Monday.
The 295 -foot beam segments were transported from Pennsylvania.
Photo courtesy of vdot
Multiple collaborations
Vdot launched a wide public awareness campaign on the weekend’s shutdown, urging motorists to avoid I-495 in a north direction near Tysons Corner. Multiple ramps on the I-495 exchange and Dulles Cordidada closed and diverted all I-495 traffic to the north was I-495 to the north, reduced to two lanes and turned to the lanes. Express I-495 to the north of Route 123. For that weekend, tolls were suspended and trucks were allowed in the express lanes.
The Plan required extensive studies to determine which ramps were closed and where, together with the coordination between toll operators, police, Dulles Airport staff and traffic signal calendar, Rimpal Shah, Vdot Design. -Build Manager. “We had a trailer truck for cases in case” traffic accidents and a ramp dedicated to which they had only been accessed by the emergency.
The state agency had planned a reduction of approximately 37% of the 100,000 daily vehicles through the exchange, but saw more than 40%, adds.
The extension is added to the 14 miles Express lanes on the I-495, which opened in 2012. The P3 Agreement of Transurban lasts until 2087, says Michelle ShROphire, director of Megaprojectes in the northern state of Virginia. . “We have 94 kilometers of express lanes networks, three operators and dynamically peeled lanes,” he says. Vehicles with less than three people pay a toll to use the express lanes. Toll income has generated “dollars of financing for improved traffic over the years,” he adds.
Transurbban has built more than 60 kilometers of lanes for the I-495, as well as for roads I-395 and I-95 in the region through P3 agreements with Virginia, says Victoria Jones, director of transurban projects. . The next I-495 project, which also includes updates to the exchange of George Washington Memorial Parkway I-495, will introduce the protection of rainwater for existing toll lanes and improvements to the Fairfax County road. Extended toll lanes will open later this year with the end of the construction established for next year.
