Fifteen years ago this month, Ames and our Provo River Constructors (PRC) joint venture partners were gearing up to begin reconstruction of 24 miles of I-15 in Utah County, just south of Salt Lake City. The I-15 Corridor Reconstruction (CORE) project would be Ames’ first $1 billion contract.
The project included design and construction of 10 interchanges, 58 bridges, and 12 temporary bridges. The winning design included an innovative rotary interchange and a diverging diamond interchange, only the third in the country at that time. At the peak of construction, more than 600 Ames craft and supervisory personnel were on the project.
Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) methods were used to erect four of the project’s permanent bridges. To minimize impacts on traffic, the superstructure of each bridge was built on temporary supports in a construction area along the side of the road. Then, over the course of a single weekend, the freeway was closed, the old bridge was torn out, and the new one was moved into place using Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMTs).
On March 26, 2011, more than 1,000 people witnessed the longest single bridge move in North America using SPMT. In one night, using a joystick to control two sets of mobile jacks, the crews lifted the 3.82 million-pound, 345-foot-long Sam White Bridge from temporary piers and rolled it 500 feet—across eight freeway lanes—to be lowered onto its permanent abutments and piers.
The project reached completion in December 2012 and received more than a dozen industry awards and honors.
