Farm Lane Road Underpass Project(Fast Track Design of Two Rail Bridges on the Campus of Michigan State University)

摘要

The Farm Lane Road Underpass Project on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan provided an opportunity to incorporate innovative contracting solutions with streamlined railroad and utility coordination to save construction time, reduce client costs, and offer significant reductions in impacts to pedestrian and vehicular traffic on campus due to the daily train delays. The project required design of two rail bridges (steel thru girder type) over a lowered Farm Lane Road vertical alignment. Each single span bridge is 115' long and carries two tracks. The relatively large quantity of structural steel required on this project combined with the University's desire to minimize closure of this main arterial roadway, provided a design challenge for the project given the long lead times required for structural steel. In response to this challenge, the design team developed a concept that would construct the project in two phases (steel fabrication and bridge construction). Attendees will learn about rail project coordination, pitfalls to avoid with technical design issues, constructability, project management, and separating the steel fabrication from the construction contract. Attendees will also learnrnabout the importance of utility coordination and its impact on the cost of a project.