On
Friday, October 5, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., the Washtenaw County
Board of Road Commissioners held an informal
“Ribbon-Cutting/Dedication Ceremony”
to commemorate the completion of the Whittaker Road Bridge
replacement project. The ceremony was held on the new bridge,
located between Willis and Judd Roads in Augusta Township.
Nineteen people attended the brief dedication ceremony. Members of the Washtenaw County Road Commission included Road Commissioners Wesley Prater (Chair); Fred Veigel (Vice-Chair) and Dave Rutledge (Member), as well as Steve Puuri, Managing Director; Roy Townsend, Director of Engineering; Aaron Berkholz, Construction Supervisor; Kelly Jones, Bridge Engineer; John Posegay, Assistant Permits Coordinator, and Val Cooper, Public Information Officer.
Local dignitaries were Karen Lovejoy Roe, Washtenaw County Commissioner; Kathleen Jackson, Augusta Township Supervisor; Lynda Dew, Augusta Township Treasurer; as well as Bill Manty and Bill Babut, Augusta Township Trustees.
The group was joined by area residents, Barbara Prater (wife of Wesley Prater); Angie Veigel (wife of Fred Veigel), Lawrence Moore, and Ted Rybak. Design Consultant Ron Woolfe, of DLZ Michigan, Inc., was also present.
Following the ribbon-cutting, Steve Puuri provided the group with a brief summary of the work done on the bridge, and extended his appreciation to the Road Commission staff, contractor and other agencies who contributed to the successful completion of the road improvement project. Puuri also thanked the residents for their patience and cooperation throughout the bridge construction.
Aaron Berkholz, Project Manager, also informed the attendees that some minimal work was yet to be completed, such as the guardrail installation and road striping, but he expected the bridge would officially reopen to the public by Monday evening, October 8, 2007.
A full closure of the Whittaker Road Bridge over the west branch of Paint Creek was imposed by the Road Commission on June 4, 2007. This closure was implemented to maintain safety within the construction zone throughout the replacement of the old structure.
The old bridge, built in 1932, carried a weight restriction of 20 tons – 25 tons – 32 tons (for I, II, III unit vehicles), and was listed in critical condition following a routine bridge inspection in May 2005. The old bridge deck was 27.9 feet wide and spanned 28.9 feet in length.
Based on the deteriorated state of the old bridge, the Road Commission applied for and received state funding through the Local Bridge Program (LPB), administered by the Michigan Department of Transportation, to replace the aging structure. The total cost to replace the Augusta Township Whittaker Road Bridge was $780,000; of which the Road Commission paid approximately $40,000 for construction, preliminary engineering, design and materials testing. The remaining funds were covered by the state-funded LBP grant.
The project included the installation of a steel sheet cofferdam enclosure, the precast concrete bridge beams were manufactured and delivered to the site by StressCon in Bay City, foundation piling construction was completed, as well as the relocation of Township sanitary force main, the relocation of AT&T and MichCon facilities and restoration work.
The deck width of the new bridge is 40-feet (clear roadway width); that is, two lanes @ 12-feet/each and two paved shoulders @ 8-feet. The new bridge, which spans 55-feet over the west branch of Paint Creek, is a concrete box beam structure with a concrete deck and concrete open-parapet style bridge rail; it can carry all legal highway loads.
The Road Commission has also been working to complete a second bridge replacement on Whittaker Road in Ypsilanti Township, and anticipates this bridge, located between Textile Road and Merritt Road, will be completed and reopened to traffic by mid-November.
Contacts
To obtain additional information on these bridge closures and replacements, contact Aaron Berkholz, Construction Supervisor, at (734) 327-6682, or via email at berkholza@wcroads.org.
For questions or further information on this press release, please contact Val Cooper, Public Information Officer, Washtenaw County Road Commission, at (734) 327-6675, or via email at cooperv@wcroads.org.