The John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Memorial Bridge has been a vital in and out of downtown Kansas City, Missouri since 1956, when it opened as the Broadway Bridge. The stretch was renamed in memory of the former Kansas City Monarchs first baseman and manager, who died in 2006 and was later inducted posthumously into the National Baseball Hall of Fame for career achievements that included being the first manager black in Major League Baseball.
Despite a short-term rehabilitation project in 2018, the iconic triple-arch bridge was fast approaching the end of its useful life. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) selected an HNTB design and construction team as the lead designer and a joint venture of Massman Construction and Clarkson Construction as the contractor in early 2021. Construction began that summer.
“We teamed up with Massman and Clarkson two years before the RFP went out,” says Marc Whitmore, HNTB vice president and director of the design and construction engineering group. “We had been chasing this job for a long time; this is not one we just stumbled upon.”
Crews installed 7 million pounds of rebar, 21,000 cubic yards of concrete and 18 million pounds of structural steel on the northbound and southbound bridges.
Photo courtesy of HNTB
Improved flow
A ring of roads goes in and out of the city centre. The project is replacing a vital connection in the northwest corner of the loop. The new bridge, which is technically split northbound and southbound, spans the Missouri River.
An important feature is the direct connection from Interstate 35, both north and south across the river, to US Highway 169 and dedicated lanes downtown, as well as improved access to Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport.
“The bridge used to funnel everyone into one point and disperse them from there,” says James Pflum,
MoDOT Project Manager. “This new project is really about separating that traffic where it makes sense and getting regional commuters where they need to go and getting local commuters downtown.”
Although the new design is less aesthetic in design than the original Broadway Bridge, which featured three steel-bound main arch spans, its simplicity serves a purpose.
“With height restrictions from the [Federal Aviation Administration] and with the railroad right there, we couldn’t design a cable-stayed bridge or any real aesthetic bridge,” Whitmore says. “So the bridge is very plain and simple.”
About 99 percent of DOT’s state projects are design-bid-build, but using design-build for the Buck O’Neil Bridge allowed the contractor and designer to speak directly during design, Pflum says. “We also had to meet some federal funding obligation requirements, so using design-build allowed us to do that,” he adds.
The $219 million design-build contract is part of an overall $257 million project budget, which includes additional funding for state DOT internal engineering costs and right-of-way utilities.
The old bridge was kept in use as long as possible to keep traffic flowing throughout construction.
Photo courtesy of HNTB
Problem solving
Navigating the existing infrastructure and coordinating with various third parties required extensive collaboration.
“This project is right in the middle of Kansas City, so [Wheeler] the airport is right there, the river is right there, [and] with Kansas City being the second largest rail hub in the country, we have a lot of railroads right there that we have to coordinate and make sure we don’t impact public service,” says Pflum. “It seemed like every day we were coordinating and trying to figure out how we were going to our project and not affect those around us”.
“It seemed like every day we were coordinating and trying to figure out how to get our project done and not affect those around us.”
—James Pflum, Project Manager, Missouri Department of Transportation
On the north side of the river, a railroad runs alongside I-69, so finding a solution that didn’t affect rail operations was critical. Pflum added that a left-hand exit at the north end of the existing bridge had a “really nasty curve” that made the roadway accident-prone. “One of our main goals was how to clean up that exit to the airport on the north end … without affecting the railroad,” Whitmore says.
Originally, the owner’s concept included significant impacts to the railway and the modification of the airport exit to a standard right-hand exit.
“We’ve turned it around and provided an exit to the left,” says Whitmore. That’s not what [the Federal Highway Administration] I would call a standard access point, so to do that we had to provide a good long turning lane and make sure our signage was adequate.” He also notes the addition of some additional safety precautions to ensure- there [state and federal agencies] that we were providing a safe route that the traveling public could understand.”
This solution avoided the rail impact entirely, saving time and risk and ultimately more than $10 million in project cost, Whitmore says. If the team had chosen to use a right-of-way exit, it would have cost much more to change the alignment of the existing road and would have required a significant retaining wall to protect the railroad, says TJ Colombatto, project manager for Massman-Clarkson.
The northwest corner of Kansas City’s downtown loop will improve traffic flow with the new bridge.
Photo courtesy of HNTB
ups and downs
The confrontation on the fickle Missouri River created added obstacles. The river’s water level reached historic lows and five-year highs during construction, not always matching the water levels required for certain works.
“We’re usually fighting high water, but we fought low, shallow water on the north shore for most of the project,” says Colombatto. “Then we had a high water event towards the end of the project during the demolition.”
To keep the project moving forward, the team resequenced work when necessary. Crews carried out the work from four barge-mounted cranes, one with a 350-tonne capacity and the others with 300-tonne, 275-tonne and 150-tonne capacities, with the largest being particularly useful.
“In some places, we used steel beams to reduce weight for construction purposes, like the interstate.”
—TJ Colombatto, Project Manager, Massman-Clarkson
“As the water recedes, the slope of the river bank takes you further away” from the work on land, Colombatto says. “We were able to use a larger crane to get to the shore and continue working from the water for the breach docks that are adjacent to the water’s edge.”
Strategic use of existing roads ensured that traffic could continue without interruption. The old bridge was kept in use as long as possible, and northbound traffic was maintained throughout construction at the request of the airport and the city to ensure uninterrupted emergency services, Colombatto says.
Once the new structures were overlaid, crews closed southbound traffic on the old bridge and removed southbound access. Northbound traffic was temporarily shifted to the old southbound lanes.
“This allowed us to complete the bridge in the north direction, which overlapped the most with the old structure. Once that was done, we switched northbound to its final alignment at the new junction and reopened southbound traffic on the new southbound bridge,” he says.
Once traffic was removed from the old bridge, demolition began at the ends of the structure “to get rid of the overhang and then moved toward the middle,” says Colombatto.
Demolition work, which began in early 2024, was still underway in early December. After the ends of the old bridge were completed, the team also finished the end links, with demolition progressing on the old bridge from the ends to the middle, with only the last two spans to be completed.
The team had to deal with river levels that ranged from historic lows to five-year highs.
Photo courtesy of HNTB
Stronger things
Because the new Buck O’Neil Bridge is designed and built to last a century, the focus was on reliable design techniques and materials.
The team opted for higher-strength materials, such as 10-ksi concrete in the prestressed bridge girders and 5-ksi concrete and 75-ksi reinforcing steel in the substructure members. Across the bridge, crews installed 7 million pounds of rebar, 21,000 m3 of concrete and 18 million pounds of structural steel.
“We used weathering steel, a combination of steel plate beam lights and some prestressed concrete beam lights, selecting those based on the most efficient design for the project locations,” says Colombatto. “In some places, we used steel beams to reduce weight for construction purposes, like the interstate.”
Some of the 15,200 feet of prestressed beams were also precast to reduce cost and schedule.
About 73 drilled shafts support the north and southbound bridges, each extending to a maximum depth of 122 feet below the river bottom.
“They were 11-foot-diameter shafts with 10.5-foot-diameter rock sockets,” says Colombatto.
The existing bridge had no pedestrian accommodation, although this did not prevent river crossers from using it. The new crossing includes a 10-foot shared path separated by barriers and a scenic overlook with benches and murals, greatly improving the space for both pedestrians and commuters.
The scope also included nine mechanically stabilized earth walls, a soil nail wall, a cast-in-place concrete wall and a large gravity block wall, which will have an artistic twist in 2025 when murals are added honoring Buck O’Neil.
As of last month, demolition work continues on the old bridge while the northbound and southbound bridges have been fully opened to traffic using a phased opening schedule.