Location: The Dalles
Cost: $343.9 million
Completion: June 2023
Owner/Developer: Oregon Department of Transportation
Engineer: Otak
General Contractor: Hamilton Construction
Submitting Company: Hamilton Construction
Subcontractors: Aaken Corp. Electrical Contractors, American Concrete, Baker Rock Resources, Beko’s Fabrication, Bridge Access Specialties, Certified Personnel Service Agency, CMC Steel Fabricators dba CMC Rebar, Fox Erosion Control & Landscaping, GNWC, Granite Construction, Hicks Striping & Curbing, Hood River Sand & Gravel, Klein & Associates, LaRusso Concrete, McDermott Fence & Construction, Pacific Rim Service and Construction, Porter W. Yett, PR Systems, PT Technologies, Ralph’s Concrete Pumping, Richey Wrecking, Roger Langeliers Construction, Smith Monroe Gray Engineers, Suulutaaq, Tenneson Engineering, Tennis Engineering, Thompson Metal Fab
The US 197 Bridge over the Columbia River underwent a monumental transformation with the replacement of its aging deck. The 3,400-foot-long steel truss and steel girder bridge features a 54-degree curve and a 10 percent super elevation.
As originally designed, joints between and below panels were grouted and cured with high-strength grout before opening to traffic. The steel truss width required sidewalk portions of the new structure to be precast, set as separate panels, and tied into the new deck panels. Work also included replacing steel girders, cross frames and diaphragms. With no precast fabricator nearby, Hamilton Construction built a precast yard a mile from the project site to fabricate the 228 precast roadway and sidewalk panels used to replace the bridge deck.
The curvature and load limitations of the bridge didn’t allow for a large transporter system for the precast panels. Smaller, more conventional hauling equipment were used to move the 30-foot by 30-foot, 110,000-pound panels. Once on the bridge, a unique proprietary jacking system, like a mobile gantry crane, straddled the panel and haul equipment, lifting it off the transport trailer and lowering it into place. The process was repeated 228 times - 114 panels were removed and 114 were replaced. The herculean task unfolded during a series of 82-hour weekend closures, spanning the fall and winter of 2021-2022 and 2022-2023.
The project team faced unique hurdles regarding safety and access on this project. The need for a temporary work deck under the truss spans, due to permit requirements near the BNSF mainline and The Dalles Lock, led to the creation of a 40-foot by 40-foot mobile work deck. This rolling scaffold, designed in collaboration with Tennis Engineering, provided both safety for workers and access during train operations.
A project of this magnitude required diligent safety efforts. Hamilton’s safety motto, “See It, Say It, Fix It,” kept the team focused, as did weekly meetings and monthly job site inspections that included a crew lunch and project-specific safety discussion. Hamilton and its subcontractors worked more than 300,000 man hours on the bridge project with one minor wrist injury, with time loss limited through retraining.
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