Unseasonably mild temperatures and a lack of rain and snow have helped edge a $2.25-million bridge replacement project close to its completion. The bridge, which is located just south of Roanoke, VA, on Highway 220, is about six weeks from being completed. The project was undertaken by Fairfield Bridge Company of Fisherville, VA, and was funded with state, county, Virginia Department of Transportation and some federal highway money.

“The existing bridge was built in 1952 and the work was deemed necessary because the bridge was very much deteriorated,” said Project Manager Rick Selles. The bridge replacement project has only had one minor glitch. “Originally we were only going to close down one lane on the bridge and then we found out the other lane couldn’t handle the traffic so we had to close the entire bridge,” said Ray Fink, superintendent of the project for Fairfield Bridge. The four-lane highway was reduced to two lanes by using the northbound side of 220 allowing the crew to close the two southbound lanes on the bridge.

The project was started in May of ’99 and was finished, thanks to cooperating weather, in March of 2000. Fairfield used its own 67.5-metric-ton (75 ton) crane along with two 45-metric-ton (50 ton) cranes, pile-driving equipment, diesel equipment and rented concrete pumping equipment.

“We excavated 170,000 cubic meters, poured concrete of 800 plus cubic meters and used approximately 261,000 kilograms of structural steel. Some very large slopes had to be graded with the remains hauled to a waste area,” said Fink. There were 15 employees with four sub-contracting companies working on the bridge replacement. “The subs were Holly Springs Excavation who handled the grading contract, Adams Construction out of Roanoke for paving, Kirk Neal Inc. out of Charlottesville for the guard rail and Gregory Seeding from Pulaski, VA, who handled the seeding,” said Selles.

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