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Projects Preparing for Suburban Growth
Chambers County Anticipates Houston Spraw1
Work completes on a section of the Grand Parkway, the “outer-outer” belt-way around Houston, while roadway facilities widen and extend along IH-10 to improve mobility in the growing county along Texas’ upper coast.
By Mary Lou Jay
The second section of Houston’s planned third beltway, the Grand Parkway or SH 99, will be opening to traffic in December. The 10-mi stretch of road, known as segment IH-2, runs from IH-10 to just west of FM 1405 in Chambers County. It is one of 11 segments of a proposed 180-mi Parkway. “It’s really all tied into the growth of Harris County and Houston and also the growth of Chambers County,” says Marc Shepherd, public information officer for TxDOT’s Beaumont District. “Two groups will benefit from this: the people who live, work and commute in Chambers County and those in Harris County, who will have an alternate route from Baytown to IH-10.”
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A Williams Brothers crew pour a mass placement of about 700 cu yds of concrete for one of the two large footings of the westbound bridge on IH-10 at the Trinity River. |
J.D. Abrams LP of Austin is the contractor on the $60 million job, which began in December 2003. “It is new construction, pretty standard for this area: lime-treated subgrade with cement-treated base course, 1 in. of bond breaker and then 12-in. concrete pavement,” says Charles Webb, Abrams’ project engineer.
One section, from Fisher Road north to IH-10, will be tolled, and TxDOT is building the road for possible expansion. “In some places we’re basically building a frontage road that will serve as the travel lane for 10 or 15 years,” says David Maxedon, engineering specialist at the TxDOT’s Liberty area office, which is overseeing construction. Then, if necessary, 10 or 15 years from now TxDOT can build the main lanes on the land that it owns inside of these frontage roads. The state has already built main lanes and frontage roads at the FM 565 overpass.
Scheduled completion date for the project was July 2006, but utility and right-of-way acquisition issues delayed work.
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Crews place the base plate for the equipment that will perform statnamic testing on one of the bridge bents on westbound IH-10 over the Trinity River. |
The first section of the Grand Parkway, which runs 19 mi from U.S. 59 near Sugar Land to IH-10 in Katy, opened to traffic in 1994. Aside from Section IH-2, now being built, no other portions are yet scheduled for construction. But the Grand Parkway Association, a nonprofit corporation authorized by TxDOT to facilitate the road’s construction, is continuing its efforts. “All other segments except segment A are currently under study and we will continue to do those studies to move things forward,” says David Gornet, executive director of the Grand Parkway Association. “Once they get environmental approvals and rights-of-way identified, TxDOT can go out and start protecting these corridors so that they don’t have development taking place that will block or increase the cost of the project in the future.”
Speeding east-west travel Improvements to three sections of IH-10 in Chambers County should also provide an easier drive for commuters and other motorists.
The first project widened the interstate from four to six lanes in a 6-mi stretch from Cedar Bayou east to FM 565. The job began in December 2003 and included construction of an overpass over the Grand Parkway. “The parkway is going to end right there and will tie into IH-10 at that spot,” Maxedon says.
Contractor for the $35 million project was McCarthy Construction Co., which has its Texas division offices in Dallas.
The project addressed drainage issues on IH-10. “Due to the flooding problems they’ve had here in Chambers County over the years, they designed a project to put 17 spans over the top of a drainage area that was created by Hackberry Creek,” says Jerry Mayer, McCarthy Building Co.’s project director. “We also added three major ponds underneath the bridges to handle the water.”
Wet weather and drainage problems combined with a major change order – the addition of 4 ft. to IH-410 to prepare for a possible tollway – delayed the project a year, but it was completed in August.
Statnamic Test Measures Piling Strength For Bridge Safety
A relatively new method of measuring piling strength helped reassure engineers about the ability of the IH-10 bridge over the Trinity River to carry required loads.
“Normally, pilings are driven with a large diesel-powered hammer and you compare how much the pile is advancing with each blow of the hammer,” says Mark McClelland, TxDOT’s geotechnical branch manager. “There are methods to look at the hammer size and how the pile is advancing and you can predict a safe working load for the pile based on that performance.”
Engineers know that some soils lose strength temporarily and then later re-solidify so the bents regain strength. But the measurements for the Trinity Bridge were inconsistent, and TxDOT decided to check its results with statnamic testing, a type of load testing that requires less time and effort than traditional methods.
Traditional static-load testing involves the construction of additional foundations called anchor or reaction pilings built outside the element to be tested. A giant structural beam is placed across the piling and a large hydraulic jack is used to load it. The amount of weight a bent can carry determines its strength.
With a statnamic test, force replaces much of this weight. The Statnamic Corporate Web site explains the process this way: “In statnamic testing, solid fuel is burnt within a pressure changer. As the pressure increases, an upward force is exerted on a set of reaction masses, while an equal and opposite force pushes downward on the pile.” Built-in instrumentation records the load and displacement of the piling.
Florida-based Applied Foundation Testing, which does this testing in the U.S., was already in the Corpus Christi area working on another job. It came to the Trinity River Bridge site and tested five bents.
“In each case, we were able to prove that the original design was in fact adequate and safe,” McClelland says.
The statnamic process saved TxDOT time and money. “We knew that they could mobilize into the site in a matter of days, and because there’s little equipment to set up, they were able to do all of the load tests within two weeks,” McClelland says. Normal static load tests often cost about $50,000 per test and the statnamic testing cost $147,000 for all five bents, which means the state saved about $100,000.
“The statnamic process worked beautifully for us in this case,” McClelland adds. “It was a last-minute decision to do the load testing, so it was in the best interest of everyone to get the testing done quickly. We didn’t hold the project up, but we verified what we needed to verify. |
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Work is about 23% complete on the second IH-10 project, the construction of twin spans over the Trinity River. “They will be segmented cantilever structures because that enables us to span greater distances and we’re trying to minimize the number of piers in the water,” says Duane Browning, area engineer for TxDOT’s Beaumont District, which is overseeing the work.
To avoid impacting traffic on the existing bridge, which is two lanes in each direction, TxDOT is building a bridge that will ultimately become the westbound structure. “After that is completed, it will handle all of the traffic while we tear down the existing bridge and build another structure in its place,” Browning adds. Eventually, traffic will be split between the two new three-lane bridges.
Wetland and environmental issues on the project are significant, especially the presence of a bird rookery that impacts both the type of construction activities permitted and when they can take place, Browning says.
“Construction activities in the identified buffer zone will only be allowed to begin between Sept. 1 and Feb. 15, when presumably no birds are there, or if they are, they’re not laying eggs,” he adds.
This $62.6 million project began in November and should take approximately 4.5 years to complete. Williams Brothers Construction Co. of Houston is the contractor.
The final segment of IH-10 under construction runs 6.5 mi. from the Trinity River Bridge east to SH 61. Houston-based W.W. Weber is the general contractor on the $65 million project.
Crews are widening the highway from four to six lanes by filling in the existing median with base and then placing another layer of cement on top of all lanes. The project will involve the reconstruction of three highway overpasses and the reconstruction of Turtle Bayou Bridge. Scheduled completion is April 2010.
The completion of the IH-10 projects will give Chambers County 36 mi. of easy-to-travel interstate, Maxedon says. “Houston is developing and moving our way, and we’re ready for it.”
Key Players:
Owner: Texas Department of Transportation
General contractors: J.D. Abrams, Austin; McCarthy Construction Co.,
Dallas: Williams Brothers Construction Co., Houston; W.W. Webber, Houston
Useful Sources:
• www.statnamic.com
• www.grandpky.com
• www.txdot.state.tx.us/BMT/mis/chambers/recommend.htm
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