White ribbon of new LA 1 taking shape near Fourchon
Leeville Bridge going up
Construction is under way on the beginning stretch of Phase 1 of Louisiana’s LA 1 Highway Project, which comprises a 6.8-mi section of two-lane, elevated highway running from Leeville south to LA 3090 at Port Fourchon, says the LA 1 Coalition, a non-profit corporation formed by residents and businesses in the region around Port Fourchon.
The coalition’s main goal is to route a new Louisiana Highway 1 to roughly parallel an existing two-lane paved road that, despite being “a critical US energy corridor,” is sinking and can now be closed by high tides moving inland along the many bayous linked with the bays and lakes on Louisiana’s southern Gulf Coast. Currently the existing road is vulnerable to complete destruction along much of its route by the wave action of hurricane storm surges.
As planned, the new LA 1 will cost something on the order of $1.5 billion. Perhaps the most crucial sections of the new highway will be construction Phases 1 and 2, which will constitute long sections of two-lane, elevated highway between Golden Meadow and Port Fourchon.
According to Henri Boulet, coalition executive director, James Construction of Baton Rouge, winning bidder for Phase 1A, has begun fulfilling its $137.5 million contract for the project’s Phase 1A, and currently is engaged in using new technology to build the raised concrete roadbed while protecting the marshy environment along the route.
For this job, designated Phase 1A, which began in Spring 2007, the construction company already has driven the necessary pilings to support the elevated highway section, and has begun using a temporary 1,500-ft long trestle atop which three cranes will be used in a “build as you go” system for advancing the elevated road northward. One crane will work to lay down additional trestle, another crane, placed behind the first, will build the concrete and steel girder road itself, snaking it along beneath the trestle.
Finally, the third crane, placed at the end of the trestle, will take up the passed-over girders to send to the first crane for re-installation. According to Boulet, this “top down” construction method is expensive, but environmentally friendly, avoiding the need for dredged construction canals through marshy areas.
Leeville Bridge begun
Concurrently, construction also is well underway on Phases 1B and 1C, which include a fixed-span, high level two-lane bridge over Bayou Lafourche at Leeville and the on and off connector ramps.
Traylor Massman Construction of Evansville, Indiana, is nearing completion of casting and setting concrete girders to which welded steel plate girders will be added in preparation for a cast-in-place concrete deck to be built for the road over the bridge. The coalition estimates the new bridge and connecting ramps, which replace a low-lift drawbridge, could be open by summer, 2009. Total estimated cost is $211.5 million.
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Volume 68 Issue 3
March 2008
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