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PITTSBURG —
The commute to and from Girard will take a little bit longer this summer. The Kansas Department of Transportation has started a project to replace the handrails on the bridge on Kansas Highway 126 west of Pittsburg. The project is scheduled for 135 working days, but officials said they’re optimistic it could be completed sooner.
“Hopefully three months is all it’s going to take,” said Ashley Roberts, the KDOT engineering technician who is in charge of the project.
The repairs, which will cost in the vicinity of $250,000, are being funded as part of the 10-year T-WORKS transportation program. The repairs fall under the preservation category, the projects of which are 100 percent funded by T-WORKS. The bridge won’t be entirely closed, and one lane will remain open during construction.
The rails are being replaced in part because their support frame has started disintegrate, said KDOT Pittsburg Area Construction Engineer Bob Gudgen.
“Over the last 30 years salt has gotten into the steel and concrete on the overhang, and it has started to rot off,” Gudgen said. “We’re doing this to restore the integrity of the handrail.”
Additionally, federal bridge regulations have changed since the 300-feet-long by 40-feet-wide four-span bridge — spans are the spaces between the pillars — was built in 1980, Roberts said. The rails originally were 2 feet 3 3/16 tall. The new rails will be 2 feet 8 3/16, 5 inches taller than the old rails.
The work is being done by B&B Bridges Co. out of St. Paul. Once they have replaced the rails — the process requires them to knock the old concrete rails off, use jackhammers to dig the remaining concrete out of the edge of the deck and replace any rebar that is too rusty and weak to reuse — the crews will check the bridge deck for any weak spots and fix them.
The project is part of five additional area projects being funded by T-WORKS. In May, KDOT began repair work on the U.S. 69A bridge about a mile north of U.S. Highway 166 at Baxter Springs, a $133,524 project. KDOT also began replacing the three bridges on Kansas Highway 47 between Girard and U.S. Highway 69, which are considered “functionally obsolete,” in March at a cost of about $2.5 million, and is replacing the steel girder bridge that spans the St. Paul River.
For more information contact KDOT Pittsburg Area Construction Engineer Bob Gudgen at (620) 231-7560, or KDOT Southeast District Public Affairs Manager Priscilla Petersen at (620) 431-1000. For more information concerning T-WORKS projects visit the website, www.ksdot.org/tworks.
The commute to and from Girard will take a little bit longer this summer. The Kansas Department of Transportation has started a project to replace the handrails on the bridge on Kansas Highway 126 west of Pittsburg. The project is scheduled for 135 working days, but officials said they’re optimistic it could be completed sooner.
“Hopefully three months is all it’s going to take,” said Ashley Roberts, the KDOT engineering technician who is in charge of the project.
The repairs, which will cost in the vicinity of $250,000, are being funded as part of the 10-year T-WORKS transportation program. The repairs fall under the preservation category, the projects of which are 100 percent funded by T-WORKS. The bridge won’t be entirely closed, and one lane will remain open during construction.
The rails are being replaced in part because their support frame has started disintegrate, said KDOT Pittsburg Area Construction Engineer Bob Gudgen.
“Over the last 30 years salt has gotten into the steel and concrete on the overhang, and it has started to rot off,” Gudgen said. “We’re doing this to restore the integrity of the handrail.”
Additionally, federal bridge regulations have changed since the 300-feet-long by 40-feet-wide four-span bridge — spans are the spaces between the pillars — was built in 1980, Roberts said. The rails originally were 2 feet 3 3/16 tall. The new rails will be 2 feet 8 3/16, 5 inches taller than the old rails.
The work is being done by B&B Bridges Co. out of St. Paul. Once they have replaced the rails — the process requires them to knock the old concrete rails off, use jackhammers to dig the remaining concrete out of the edge of the deck and replace any rebar that is too rusty and weak to reuse — the crews will check the bridge deck for any weak spots and fix them.
The project is part of five additional area projects being funded by T-WORKS. In May, KDOT began repair work on the U.S. 69A bridge about a mile north of U.S. Highway 166 at Baxter Springs, a $133,524 project. KDOT also began replacing the three bridges on Kansas Highway 47 between Girard and U.S. Highway 69, which are considered “functionally obsolete,” in March at a cost of about $2.5 million, and is replacing the steel girder bridge that spans the St. Paul River.
For more information contact KDOT Pittsburg Area Construction Engineer Bob Gudgen at (620) 231-7560, or KDOT Southeast District Public Affairs Manager Priscilla Petersen at (620) 431-1000. For more information concerning T-WORKS projects visit the website, www.ksdot.org/tworks.
