Creative Solutions to Bridge Design
Our talented team of bridge engineers bring decades of experience in a variety of engineering specialties, from the design and permitting of bridge projects to accelerated bridge construction methods to extensive work with state Departments of Transportation (DOT), to build safe roadways and reduce environmental impacts for communities across the Northeast. We asked members of our bridge team to share their most interesting challenges while working on bridge projects:
Brian Gargan
Senior Project Manager
One challenging project I faced was developing an accelerated approach to replace a through girder bridge at a railroad crossing where numerous utilities are carried along both sides of the structure. The project required extensive coordination among designers, utility owners, and all project stakeholders to meet a strict project timeframe.
Our team had to design and detail an approach to demolish the existing structure and complete the replacement structure during a three-week roadway closure, in which we identified elements that could be progressed ahead of the closure while providing a feasible overall solution from a constructability standpoint.
Eric Ohanian
Project Manager
I frequently work on projects that involve replacing undersized culverts to restore streamflow and fish passage. One of the first projects I worked on for this purpose offered a new perspective for me at the time: public infrastructure being upgraded for ecological reasons. Seeing dozens of dead fish made the problem feel very real and urgent.
Designing the bridge required coordination across disciplines and with project partners, strengthening both my technical understanding and professional relationships, and resulted in a visibly healthier ecosystem at the site. That project helped me discover a niche in balancing infrastructure with natural systems and deepened my appreciation for civil engineering’s role in environmental stewardship.
Jonathan Ives
Senior Project Manager
Several years ago, I led the design effort to replace a 100-year-old, five-track railroad bridge adjacent to Stamford Station. The Metro-North rail corridor is heavily used, with about 350 trains per day passing through the project area. To limit costly track outages, our design employed multiple Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) concepts including jump spans, prefabricated bridge components, and superstructure installation by Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMT’s). Compared to traditional construction, our ABC design reduced the overall construction duration by over three years and cut the number of days of modified train schedules from over a thousand to just a handful.
Andrea Lacasse
Project Manager
I led the replacement of two structures spanning a brook that wound under a local road closed by the State. Minimizing impact to the brook, which is a protected surface water resource, and budget posed a challenge. Each superstructure was a modular truss donated by the State and to avoid a lengthy permitting schedule, we proposed longer structures and realigned the roadway to accommodate skew limitations with the trusses and eliminate work in the water. We also utilized a Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Integrated Bridge System (GRS-IBS) abutment for the substructure, which presented an innovative, cost-effective solution. The road was reopened on time and on budget.