Summit was selected by the City of Pikeville as the prime consultant for a new bridge across the Levisa Fork River, roadway approaches and a new intersection with US 23 to improve the connectivity and truck access to the recently reconstructed access roads leading to the new Kentucky Enterprise Industrial Park. Summit retained Palmer Engineering as a subconsultant to provide structural design, a traffic study, and assistance with drainage design, right-of-way acquisition, and other design aspects.
The goal of this project was to design and construct a 628 LF, four-span precast concrete I-Beam (PCIB) beam bridge, with 767 LF of approaches, crossing the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River to provide direct access from US 23 to the Kentucky Enterprise Industrial Park. The new intersection at US 23 necessitated removal of a raised median in order to construct a new Left Turn Lane for vehicles (primarily trucks) turning into the new industrial park entrance.
In order to span the CSX railroad mainline adjacent to the river, and provide the minimum vertical clearance required over the tracks, approach grades and a bridge slope of approximately 5.5 percent was required. The bridge pier heights were between 47 and 61 feet in height. The bridge piers were constructed on drilled shafts, which extended 60 feet below grade to bedrock, plus a 10 foot rock socket. Special Inspections of the drilled shafts were performed by CSI of Kentucky as a subconsultant to Summit. Careful attention in the design phase, and during construction inspection resulted in no quantity over runs for foundation construction.
The project funding and needs of a prospective park tenant required the project to be designed and ready for bid, within 12 months, including property acquisition. This schedule was met, and the construction was completed well under budget with no significant change orders. Remaining project funds were used to construct a new concrete boat ramp access adjacent to the bridge piers for
Bridge Details: PCI beam construction, four spans (157’ each), 628’ in length, 48’ total width
Approach Lengths: Marion Branch Road approach 285 LF, US 23 approach 482 LF
