April 2014
Historic Milton-Madison Bridge Slide Complete
MADISON, IN - The 2,428 foot-long, steel-truss Milton-Madison Bridge has connected the small river towns of Madison, In., and Milton, Ky., for the past 85 years. Eight decades and millions of vehicle crossings later, the bridges deterioration and 20-foot-wide road deck was obsolete and too narrow to handle modern traffic.
In August 2008, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) launched the Milton-Madison Bridge Project in an effort to replace the bridge.
The project consisted of a design-build bridge replacement on US 421 from Madison, In., to Milton, Ky. This contract originally planned for a 365 day closure with the use of a ferry boat. Walsh developed a design solution that practically eliminated the need for the ferry boat which had a cost of $25,000 per day for operation.
The project included building a new truss on the downstream piers while the existing bridge remained open to traffic. The existing piers were strengthened, the old truss was removed, and the new truss is slid onto the strengthened existing piers.
Polished steel sliding plates were secured on top of the refurbished piers. Steel cables and eight computer-controlled hydraulic jacks were used to pull the bridge through a series of grabs and pulls until the bridge was slid into place. The 30-million pound new steel truss bridge is 40-feet wide with two 12-foot lanes and 8-foot shoulders – twice as wide as the old bridge. A 5-foot-wide cantilevered sidewalk will be added to the structure in the coming months.
Now that the slide is complete, it will take approximately a week to complete inspections, road connections to the bridge and other work before the bridge is reopened to traffic.
The Milton-Madison Bridge Project – a joint effort between the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet – has received numerous awards. It was named one of the top 10 bridge projects in the country by Roads & Bridges magazine, received a 2012 Best of What’s New Award from Popular Science magazine and received several state and national engineering awards for innovation.
Watch the time-lapse video HERE.
For more information on the Milton-Madison Bridge Project, visit the Milton-Madison Bridge Project official website and follow the project on Twitter.
Other related news: Milton-Madison Bridge Slides Into Place, March 14, 2012, WLKY.com
A 100-foot concrete section of the Kentucky side of the Milton-Madison Bridge slid into place.
Watch the time-lapse video HERE.