SAFE & SOUND BRIDGE IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM OVERVIEW

When the Commission launched the program in September 2008, a goal was established to have 802 bridge projects completed by the end of 2014. Nearly 250 of those bridges were to be rehabilitation projects processed through MoDOT’s monthly letting schedule, with 100 under contract by the spring of 2009. The remaining 554 bridges – all complete replacements – were to be accomplished through a single design-build contract.

In May 2009, KTU Constructors, a joint venture of Kiewit Western Company, Traylor Brothers, Inc. and United Contractors, Inc., was selected as the design-build contractor. They committed to finish the project by December 31, 2013, and ultimately beat that goal by 14 months.

The Commission celebrated the anticipated completion of Safe & Sound at its October meeting in Neosho. There, KTU Executive Scott Cassels and MoDOT Project Director Ken Warbritton cited teamwork as the key to the successful completion of the program. Cassels noted that 491 of KTU’s 554 bridges were completed by what he called “the hometown team” – 22 Missouri contractors and more than 100 subcontractors and materials suppliers. An additional 21 local bridge builders and many more subcontractors performed the rehab work.

“You are blessed with fantastic craftsmen here in Missouri,” Cassels said, noting than as many as 500 were working at any one time on the many KTU jobsites.

Approximately 90% of the work was performed by Missouri workers. 

Safe & Sound was not a complicated construction project (the average bridge was 150 feet long and 24 feet wide), but the logistics were mind-blowing – moving men, equipment and materials all over the state. Cassels said that on its projects alone, 20,000 loads were delivered in three construction seasons and KTU vehicles traveled three million miles (equivalent to 120 trips around the globe) carrying personnel who administered the work.

The key to the rapid completion of Safe & Sound was the strategy to close roads and replace bridges in the same location, eliminating the need for costly roadwork. The average closure was just 42 days, or half the time of a normal bridge replacement project.