The City’s pedestrian and bikepath trail system, which is one of the great treasures in our community, continues to expand thanks to a partnership between the City of Rolla’s Public Works Department and the Center for Transportation Infrastructure and Safety (C.T.I.S.) and Center for Infrastructure Engineering Studies (C.I.E.S.) at Missouri University of Science and Technology.
The latest expansion to the 9.2-mile-long trail system involves the 1.5-mile-long Deible Loop Pedestrian Bikepath that runs parallel to the Deible Branch located on Lions Club Drive between Hwy. O and Hwy. 63 South. For the past year and a half the City’s Public Works Department and Engineering staff has worked diligently designing the Deible Loop Pedestrian Bikepath with assistance from students, faculty and staff at Missouri S&T’s Center for Transportation Infrastructure and Safety.
On Thursday, Sept. 30 two very large state-of-the-art concrete pedestrian bridges, valued at $55,000 (not including instrumentation and monitoring systems), were installed at two different crossings on the Deible Branch that will be one of the major attractions of the Deible Loop Pedestrian Bikepath. Public Works Director Steve Hargis, together with the City’s Engineering staff lead by Darrell Jones, Sr. Project Coordinator, and Anne McClay, Project Coordinator, have worked together on the design and construction of the pedestrian bridge portion since October 2008 with Kurt Bloch, a Civil Engineering graduate student at Missouri S&T, Dr. John J. Myers an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at Missouri S&T, and Jason Cox, Sr. Research Specialist with the C.I.E.S. at Missouri S&T. Bloch is working on the bridge project as part of his master’s thesis. He and Dr. Myers took on the Deible Loop Bikepath Pedestrian bridge project as a research project that involves the use of innovative construction materials.
Both pre-stress bridges, which are constructed with high strength self consolidating concrete (over 10,000 psi vs. 4,000 psi for a conventional bridge), range in length and weight from 48-feet and 120,000 pounds to 34-feet and 85,000 pounds. The bridge decks consist of two large concrete slabs reinforced with steel and fiberglass rebar, which will significantly extend the life of the bridge and help prevent corrosion. The research team from Missouri S&T installed monitoring equipment that was placed inside the bridge structures to assist them in assessing pre-stress loss, thermal gradient, and basically how well the bridge will perform in the field for year’s to come.
Construction and installation of the two concrete pedestrian bridges also involved the efforts of the City’s Construction Department lead by Foreman Bill Cochran and Equipment Operators Jeff Grisham and Chris Palmer who constructed the bridge abutments, prepared the foundation for the bridge, and fastened the huge concrete slabs together with large cast-iron plates and screws that were welded by Maggi Construction. The large multi-ton concrete slabs were put into place by Gene Gabriele, III, Director of Operations with Gabriele Crane Rental, Inc. based in Rolla. The slabs were slowly and carefully moved into place with the Missouri Monster, the largest crane in Gabriele’s fleet that has a 210-ton capacity, and 120-foot-long boom. The entire apparatus weighed over 300,000 pounds, and required four semi-trucks to transport it to the job site on Lions Club Drive.
Both of the pedestrian bridges on the Deible Loop Bikepath were installed by the end of the day on Thursday, and the entire operation involved the combined efforts of the City’s Public Works Department, Rolla Police Department (which temporarily closed a portion of Lions Club Drive), Maggi Construction, Gabriele Crane, Inc, and the research team from Missouri S&T. The entire project was funded by the City of Rolla, the Center for Transportation Infrastructure and Safety at Missouri S&T, and Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT).
Completion of the Deible Loop Bikepath is scheduled for January 2010, and I hope residents and visitors alike will enjoy this new addition to the City’s pedestrian and bikepath system.
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