If you happen to run into Parsons Fellow-at-Large and recently appointed Infrastructure North America CTO Jim Birdsall either at an office or on a jobsite, watch where he steps. You might not notice anything out of the ordinary, but he happens to be walking in the footsteps of one of the bridge engineering industry’s most storied figures, Blair Birdsall.

Blair Birdsall attended Princeton University for undergrad and graduate school before taking a job with J.A. Roebling’s Sons’ Company as a lead engineer, where the first major bridge he worked on was the Golden Gate Bridge. From there, Blair jumped from bridge to bridge and wire rope structure to wire rope structure, focusing both on fabrication and on-site delivery, which took him all over the world, including Canada, Alaska, El Salvador, Japan, and Europe.

In 1965, Blair joined Steinman, which had been founded in 1920 by David B. Steinman, a prominent civil engineer known for his work on many significant bridge projects. At the time, the company employed 80 to 100 employees, who Blair lovingly referred to as “the Gang.” By 1989, the year it merged with Ralph M. Parsons Group, Steinman had become Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist, and Birdsall.

Firsthand Knowledge Of Blair’s Impact

Tom Spoth, senior vice president of our Infrastructure North America business unit, Fellow Emeritus, and former Steinman employee, has firsthand knowledge of Blair’s contributions both to the engineering field and to Parsons’ current bridge practice. Tom met Blair in 1984 when he traveled to New York from Virginia for an interview. “I recall thinking he was an important guy, maybe because he was sitting behind a large mahogany desk in a very tidy office. Over the years, I came to learn he was an important guy. He was key to saving the Williamsburg Bridge from demolition, and the methods he and his team developed for cable investigation and preservation at the Golden Gate and Mount Hope Bridges have become standard practice today. Aside from being such a pioneer in bridge engineering, he was also very personable and willing to help us youngsters when in need, which was often.”

Tom says Blair was very outgoing, both socially and when it came to sharing technical knowledge. For example, he would come out on the floor where all the engineers sat and pick a handful of them and say, “Join me at Captain’s Ketch for lunch.” Captain’s Ketch was Blair’s favorite local restaurant in Manhattan. In fact, Steinman held its Christmas party there several times, and, according to Tom, Blair’s speeches at those parties were memorable. Tom says, “One year, [Blair] stood on the table, as an 80-something-year-old man, so everyone could see and hear his vibrant and encouraging speech.”

Tom also was witness to Blair’s generous spirit. He shares, “I remember hearing from the TIBA executive director that he and Blair had gone out to lunch. They each wanted to pay the bill, so Blair flipped a coin and won the privilege to pay. The executive director later learned it was Blair’s one-sided coin. That’s just the way Blair was—generous and always prepared.”

Tom says that one day he was in Blair’s office in Hoboken, New Jersey, and noticed that on the wall behind his desk, Blair had hung a portrait of Charles Sunderland—an engineer at Roebling’s for 50 years, known for developing several advancements in the engineering of steel wires and ropes, as well as prestressed concrete. “He told me to find somebody you really respect and try to follow in his footsteps and that the portrait was a reminder to him to do just that.” Years later, Tom continues, “I was at the current Roebling Museum and there was the portrait, and a similar one of Blair, hanging next to each other on display. I looked at those two great men for a while and pondered the contributions they made to the world of bridge engineering.”

Through this approach, Blair was instrumental in supporting the Gang in their careers going forward. The work they did had a massive impact through the structures they designed, but also in building the repository of technical knowledge that carried over into Parsons and continues to grow today. And while his coworkers certainly recognized Blair’s importance, they weren’t the only ones—the City of New York named him “Mr. Bridges” and designated May 24, 1984, as “Blair Birdsall Day.”

A Shared Passion

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that, like his grandfather, Jim Birdsall developed a passion for engineering. When Jim was 13, Blair, who was by then walking with a cane, called the deputy director of New York City Bridges to take Jim on-site at the Brooklyn Bridge, where they climbed down into the anchorage. On that visit, Jim was able to get down into parts of the bridge that aren’t public, where the main cable splayed apart into individual strands or individual bundles. This field trip served to fuel Jim’s infatuation with engineering and established the field as one of his true joys in life.

Jim would go on to graduate from Lehigh University, which holds a collection of Blair Birdsall documents (approximately 180 boxes), and earn his PhD from EPFL, in Switzerland. He joined Parsons 24 years ago, working as an associate bridge engineer in what had been the old Steinman office, and his grandfather’s proteges became his mentors. Now as the CTO of Parsons Infrastructure North America and a Parsons Fellow, Jim reinvests in the company and carries on in his grandfather’s spirit by sharing his technical knowledge, perspective, and joy for the practice with colleagues and collaborators.

Bridging Generations Globally

Like it did for Blair, Jim’s love for engineering has led him all over the States and abroad, including to Abu Dhabi, where he lived with his family and worked for five years, and to Saudi Arabia, where he worked with the Public Investment Fund and a number of development companies. Also, like his grandfather, Jim has made an indelible impact on many young engineers, has introduced many best practices to Parsons, and has led with a generous spirit. Jim has and will work on some amazing bridges, but when all is said and done, perhaps the greatest bridge he will ever extend is the one between his grandfather, Blair, and the next generation of engineers at Parsons.

The post Parsons Family Legacies: A Legacy Continued appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

Construction is progressing upward and onwards on the Gordie Howe International Bridge project, and our team, as Owner’s Engineer, is diligently overseeing every step along the way.

Let’s have a look at the remarkable series of milestones that were achieved these past couple of years. Foundations for the bridge were completed and emerged from the ground in the spring of 2020 when both sides of the USA-Canada border were locking down and the teams were learning how to continue operations during a global pandemic. Then began the work on the giant towers, 220m tall, made of cast-in-place reinforced concrete. Much of the design and construction of the towers is driven by a key technical requirement defined by our subject matter experts: 125 years of service life, the longest service life required in comparable bridge procurements. With topics such as climate change, sustainability, and circular economy being top of mind in our industry, maximizing service life appears imperative, and the durability study conducted by our experts revealed that providing a service life of 125 years instead of 75 years had little impact on cost.

Canada Day – July 1, 2020, marked the first footing concrete placement, 1000 cubic meters, to form the first lift of the giant tower footings. Exactly 6 months later, right before the crews went home for the Holidays, the last bit of the footings’ concrete was placed, totaling 7600 cubic meters for both towers.

The year 2021 kicked off with the teams’ focus shifted to the tower leg construction. With repetitive operations like tower leg lifts, construction started to accelerate. Geometry control was one of the most challenging aspects of building the legs. The design-builder worked against gravity by different means such as building the legs with a camber and using temporary cross beams. In July 2021, just after the project celebrated 1000 days since the start of construction, another important milestone was reached: Tie-beam construction was completed. This is one of the most critical structural elements for this bridge, balancing the horizontal reaction forces coming from the inclined tower legs. The designer elected to position the tie-beam at grade level, connecting the footings, and to post-tension the element.

So what does it mean for the Owner’s Engineer team when an activity performed by the design-builder is of higher complexity or is more critical? It means risk is higher and therefore our team performs a more detailed oversight exercise. For example, for the high-risk tie-beam post-tensioning work, our team performed a mirrored QC. And for tower geometry control, our survey sub-consultant independently checked tower leg geometry at every lift. The P3 partners focused on decreasing cycle times of the tower leg erection, and by spring 2022, when the legs reached their full height of 135m above ground, the cycle time was as low as one lift per week. Our oversight role was key to promote continuous improvement of the works, helping to ensure that optimizing the tower erection cycle times was not sacrificing quality.

Now is officially the season of steel on the Gordie Howe International Bridge! The very first deck element was lifted into place on March 29, 2022, on the Canadian side. Due to the Bridge site’s proximity to Zug island’s industrial area, the exposure condition of the exterior metallic surfaces is classified as a very high corrosivity environment (ISO 9223 C5). The visible white finish of the structural steel consists mainly of a 3-coat paint system, meant to last 40 years in this environment, as required by our subject matter experts. On July 27, 2022, the first steel anchor boxes, which are fabricated elements that will secure the cables at the tower, were placed on the US tower.

Overall completion of the bridge and opening is planned for the end of 2024. Once complete, the Gordie Howe cable-stayed bridge will have a clear span of 853 meters over the Detroit River, giving it the longest main span of any cable-stayed bridge in North America.

The post Hitting Milestones On The Gordie Howe International Bridge appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

To celebrate the launch of our employer brand, we’re highlighting a few of the stories that epitomize what our employees love about working at Parsons (expressed in our recently released employee value proposition) as well as what they’re doing to imagine next.

Our employee value proposition begins with the following lines:

Imagine working someplace where you’re surrounded by intelligent, diverse people sharing a common quest. Imagine working someplace where those people take immense pride in the quality of their work and champion that same quality in the work of others.

An intelligent person who takes pride in the quality of his work and champions quality in the work of others? That sounds an awful lot like Tom Spoth.

Tom is a VP working out of our New York office, our bridge practice lead, a founding board member of the Parsons Fellows, and he’s responsible for leading our efforts as quality inspector of the Mackinac Bridge.

To get an idea of what he’s dealing with, the Mackinac Bridge is a 5-mile-long structure that connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan over the Straits of Mackinac. It was originally designed and built by Steinman, completed in 1957. Steinman was subsequently acquired by Parsons, in 1989, and became a big part of our New York office center of excellence, and we’ve been involved with the Mackinac Bridge ever since.

Tom himself, who came to us through the Steinman acquisition, has spent time on the Mackinac Bridge every year since 1985, so he’s intimately familiar with the structure, as well as the commitment to quality necessary to maintain such a crossing in good working order for such a long time. “Quality as part of the job and quality as part of our culture go hand-in-hand,” Tom says. “Getting it right and having procedures is necessary, but it’s also necessary to take personal ownership of quality in whatever you do.”

When it comes to the Mackinac Bridge, there are certainly procedures to be followed, but there’s also something very personal about hands-on inspections. According to Tom, “These bridges are machines. People don’t realize how much they move.” He describes hearing the creaking and screeching of various components and feeling the bridge move, perceiving how the bridge is behaving, mechanically, compared to how it should or how it did in years prior. “Your first time out there, you might never realize it,” he says.

So each year, we send people out to the Mackinac Bridge for a few weeks for an end-to-end inspection, including the bearings, the cables, down deep into the anchorages for the cables, the approach span trusses, and everything else, and we provide guidance on maintenance and any major construction activities. For example, in recent years, Parsons performed a very in-depth bridge deck study to determine how long the deck could be made to last. This involved service-life modeling, analysis of alternatives, wind tunnel testing, and the development of a potential program to replace the bridge deck over a period of 20 years. While not every component lasts forever, Tom says that the bridge itself just might, if taken care of properly.

That kind of high standard is something everyone can aspire to, but to achieve it takes a certain level of experience. That’s why Tom does what he can to share his years of experience with younger professionals just starting out. “The code books are very prescriptive,” he says, “but you still have to have experience with the living mechanisms of these bridges to really understand them.” So Tom keeps his door open and is always willing to talk.

In addition to an open door, Tom keeps an open mind.

There’s some cookie-cutter stuff out there, I suppose, but I like the complicated stuff that requires creativity—the stuff that makes people ask things like, ‘How are we going to do this and still allow traffic on the bridge and not even let commuters know there’s anything going on?'”

It’s that kind of high-level problem solving—and the collaboration required to accomplish it—that keeps Tom motivated.

Whether maintaining an iconic crossing like the Mackinac Bridge, designing a new structure, or tinkering with a woodworking project at home, Tom believes the ability to think many steps ahead, to imagine what’s next, is vitally important to the success of the end result. “It’s about vision and being able to put all the pieces and parts together to make them become something that wasn’t there before.” What we can be sure of is that if Tom’s involved, whatever thing that is will only strengthen Parsons’ reputation for quality.

The post Imagine Next: Championing Quality appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

Since 2006, we’ve had an engineering services agreement with Williams, under which the New York City office completed many different bridge projects. Williams is one of the largest natural gas distributors in the country and operates in all 50 states. In 2019, Williams reached out to us regarding the rehabilitation of one of their gas metering and distribution stations, located right in our backyard, on a pier off Manhattan in the Hudson River.

The work included replacing all steel bracing between piles as well as encasing the existing piles with a new marine concrete form to protect them from further corrosion due to exposure to the Hudson River brackish waters. We were also required to design collars to hold a security fence around the perimeter of the structure, which prevents access by unauthorized personnel to the vicinity of the gas pipeline. 

As a young engineer, this was an incredible project to work on—an opportunity to become more self-sufficient and to hone more than just my technical skills. This marked the first time I was able to see a project through from the beginning of the conceptual design, to the agency permitting process, to the end of construction. Working with a small team, I prepared calculations, contract plans, specifications, and as-builts for the entirety of the design, which included learning about flood and wave loading.

Once construction began, I was the main point of contact between Williams, the hired contractor, and others at Parsons. I attended weekly meetings as the project engineer, communicated our concerns and vision for implementing the design, and reviewed all incoming submittals to ensure the work adhered to the contract set.

Throughout the project, my ability to communicate effectively with outside clients grew exponentially. I’ve developed a new appreciation for all the additional skills needed to be a manager in our profession, as I was expected to keep the project on schedule and ensure that we continued to meet the client’s needs. As a result of this unforgettable opportunity, I plan to take everything I learned and continue my journey toward becoming a project manager.

The post An Exciting Career Opportunity: Williams 134th Street Pier Rehabilitation appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

Every year since 1938—when the bridge opened to traffic—engineers from our Bridge Team travel to the Thousand Islands region of New York State and Ontario, Canada, to inspect the Thousand Islands Bridge. Our legacy Steinman team designed the entire international crossing, serving as the engineers for the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority (TIBA) ever since. One of a few intriguing span types, the crossing consists of two suspension bridges: one over the US Seaway channel and one over the Canadian channel.

This year was unique in two ways. First, to cross the international border, we were required to meet stringent Covid-19 protection protocol, including proof of inoculation, a negative Covid-19 test within the past 72 hours, and proof of essential services provided. Second, we supported TIBA staff in removing a fully loaded suspender cable and replacing it with a new one—while under traffic.

The operation consisted of installing the Parsons-designed jacking frames, removing the deck-level connections, pulling the old suspender down using a temporary upper nest of sheeves, and attaching the new suspender to the tail of the old one to unreal it and pull it up and over the main cable. Reconnection at the deck level completed the job. The work was well planned and was accomplished without the slightest deviation from the plan.

Congratulations to our team for the flawless execution of work. The old suspender is currently being sent for ultimate strength testing as part of an ongoing asset management program for these world-class suspension bridge spans.

The post It’s Suspenseful: Thousand Islands Bridge Canadian Crossing appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

The Interstate Highway System. High-speed rail projects. Expanding and improving airports across the United States. Mega infrastructure projects have the potential to positively impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals every day, while generating jobs and economic impact for years to come. These may be the kinds of projects envisioned by the trillions in funding available from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), but they are not the only projects with the potential for positive change.

These big-ticket investments generate big headlines, but there are thousands of smaller undertakings that will also improve the lives and safety of everyday people around the U.S.  

As the lead designer on the Judlau Design-Build Team for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Parsons delivered design innovations for the RK-23C Design-Build Project that avoided high-risk buried oil-static lines, reduced the overall costs, improved community health, simplified the construction sequence and schedule, and allowed the project to be completed one month ahead of an aggressive schedule and four months earlier than the original project schedule estimated in the RFP.

The project included the design and construction of a new 13-span connector ramp to carry traffic from the Harlem River lift span of the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Bridge to northbound Harlem River Drive. While not a major new crossing, the new ramp provides a direct connection between these major arteries, allowing traffic from Queens to continue undisrupted to all points north of the RFK Bridge.

The work involved the design of new piles, columns, superstructure, drainage, roadway lighting, sign structures, and appurtenances. The new connector ramp incorporates bespoke architectural details, such as vertical flutes at the top of hammerhead piers, back-of-parapet geometric rustications, Art Deco–style lampposts, and stainless-steel New York State medallions.

Bridge-lighting features complement the new ramp elements, providing an inviting entrance from the adjacent neighborhood to the shoreline, where, in the future, a new park will be constructed by New York City.

The project was staged using intermittent day and night lane closures, and maintenance and protection-of-traffic plans that created a safe work zone along the Harlem River Drive median without reducing the parkway’s capacity in either direction during the day. The construction of the new pier foundations south of the Willis Avenue Bridge (also a Parsons project) required close communication with city agencies like the New York City Department of Transportation and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, for the modification of the existing stormwater drainage system.

Working closely with Judlau and the Authority through the ATC process, we optimized the tender design, eliminated a pier and a span, and redesigned the structural layout to avoid potential conflicts with existing underground high-voltage lines present at the Harlem River Drive median. Our design also converted a straddle pier into a conventional hammerhead pier.

The Parsons team focused on delivering maximum project value while increasing the quality of living for all nearby communities. For New Yorkers and visitors to New York, this redesign and construction mean a savings of 150,000 hours of total travel time per year, a reduction of 2,500 tons of CO₂ equivalent per year, and a significant drop in air and noise pollution in the surrounding communities.

This milestone is particularly important because Central Harlem has some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the U.S. By reducing CO2, this improved air quality and the wellbeing of the community. Little changes to critical infrastructure can make a massive impact in the health, safety, and quality of life in the communities it supports.

This single, smaller project demonstrates the major impact we can create when the IIJA funds are invested wisely. Building or repairing with a renewed focus on enhancing sustainability, resilience and long service life in our projects provides an outsized and positive impact. For cities and states looking to invest federal funding, tackling projects that address environmental justice challenges should be a top of the list consideration.

Our success in Harlem is completely scalable and can be replicated across New York and across the country.

The economic viability, safety, and overall welfare of the U.S. will benefit for generations to come from infrastructure investments both large and small. Every investment in infrastructure, is an investment in our nation’s future and success.

The post Ahead Of The Game: Delivering The RK-23C Project Four Months Ahead Of Schedule appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

Built in 1968, the Jaipur Bridge, named after Calgary’s sister city of Jaipur, is one of the primary south connections between the Eau Claire area and Prince’s Island Park. After more than 50 years in service, the bridge reached the end of its service life and no longer met the current demands. As a prequalified firm under the “new bridge” category, the City of Calgary chose our team to provide engineering services to replace the pedestrian bridge.

This project scope includes options evaluation, design, tender preparation, and construction services in replacing the existing Jaipur Bridge. The new crossing will be flood resilient, enhance the natural environment, provide better hydraulic conductivity of the lagoon channel, and integrate with the vibrant upgrades planned for the neighborhood – detailed in the Eau Claire Public Realm Plan.

Preliminary work involved environmental studies and permit applications, hydraulic and geotechnical studies, utility coordination, stormwater and drainage assessment, constructability of the structure, surveying of the area and existing structures, and class 3 cost estimate. The work required detailed coordination with other active and future projects adjacent to the proposed site to create an effective area-wide design to provide a continuous, safe, and accessible riverfront, promoting year-round activities. The preliminary phase for the Jaipur replacement bridge involved developing three working concepts, which are vetted with project stakeholders to form the recommended solution.

The aesthetic is one of the key design considerations for Jaipur Bridge as it is located in Downtown Calgary and is one of the landmarks in the area. The new Jaipur Bridge is a 6m wide, 60m long three-span bridge promoting the natural look of the park using various building materials such as weathering steel, stainless steel, wood, and textured concrete wearing surface. The unique bridge rail combined with a ledge provides spectacular light patterns to the bridge deck when night falls. Innovatively using LED light on the bridge is not the only sustainable design component. The functionality enhancement of the Eau Claire Lagoon drainage system also reflects the sustainability concept. Additionally, we provided constructability plans to minimize environmental and social impacts during construction, which will enhance social sustainability for the bridge construction.

COVID-19 posed challenges to the construction industry to maintain the supply chain and maintain additional health and safety protocols during 2020, when we completed the Jaipur Bridge design started tendering and construction. Hence, structural steel and concrete material and qualified personnel may not be available, and it may also lead to higher material costs. To eliminate this uncertainty, during design and before tender, our team proactively reached out to industry representatives of steel and concrete suppliers, and internal project PMs for their experience with material availability and price during this time. The proactive outreach helped us find the available materials with reasonable costs and kept within the project construction budget.

After overcoming challenges via design and tendering phases, we delivered aesthetic, functional, and sustainable bridge design; now, the bridge has begun construction and is scheduled to open in June 2022, just before Canada Day.

The post Connecting Communities In Calgary appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

On July 8, 2021, we presented the bridge deck preservation and deck replacement study report to the Mackinac Bridge Authority (MBA) Board of Directors at a public meeting held on Mackinac Island, marking a significant milestone for both us and MBA. The report defines a 17-year capital program that will culminate in the completion of the full deck replacement for this 5-mile-long bridge crossing over the Strait of Mackinac. This will be the largest capital project ever undertaken by MBA since the bridge opened in the fall of 1957.

We were tasked with the deck preservation and replacement study early in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was causing turmoil in project execution around the world. Our team undertook the most comprehensive condition inspection ever completed at the bridge and executed a plan to complete the multidisciplinary study—all while working remotely. Remote over-the-shoulder progress review meetings were also scheduled with MBA staff, a technique that benefited the effectiveness of the project workflow.

The study included field condition inspection, material sampling and laboratory analysis, service-life modeling, load rating, alternatives development, 3D computer modeling and wind tunnel testing, construction cost estimates, safety- and accident-history review, benchmarking against similar bridges, 3D-model printing, and alternatives analysis. The latter is an application of AltEval, a multicriteria decision algorithm written by a Parsons Fellow for complex decision-making situations such as this.

At the completion of the above-noted board meeting, the chairman complimented our team on the thoroughness of each aspect of this study report and the resulting presentation. The entire team’s dedication to the project and commitment to collaboration are what defined and successfully delivered this complex project during the most unusual of times.

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Our Complex BIM Modeling Of The BQE In NYC

As part of a joint venture, our team has been providing preliminary and final design and construction support services for the rehabilitation and/or replacement of approximately 1.5 miles of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway (I-278) in Brooklyn, New York, since 2017. Twenty-one bridges exist along the length of the expressway, including a unique half-mile-long, triple-cantilever structure.

The project extends between Sands Street on the east and Atlantic Avenue on the west, including the entire Atlantic Avenue interchange in Brooklyn. It is situated among some of the densest urban environment in North America, with pervasive public and private geometric congestion. Its complexity contributes to tunnels, subway facilities; large sewers; privately owned, multistory structures, and extremely heavy traffic. Severely over-constrained, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) has been looking for a building information modeling (BIM) solution.

As part of this project, NYCDOT requested that a full 3D BIM model be developed of the existing corridor to help optimize multidisciplinary coordination among the project team, improve accuracy in cost estimation, better assess constructability, act as a tool for clash detection, and develop the preliminary and final designs for the project. The 3D BIM model aids designers in understanding the effects of a proposed alternative, including impacts for each construction stage while streamlining the planning efforts of the final design and construction stages. The scope required the creation of a comprehensive model of the corridor’s structures, utilities, transit, and adjacent buildings, into which this section of the BQE is integrated. Until now, the level of understanding provided by this BIM would have been out of reach.

Work officially kicked off in early 2020. We led the BIM modeling, while our JV partner provided quality control reviews and civil and utility coordination with the JV’s surveyors. The JV used previously collected LIDAR scans of the corridor to create an as-built surface that the BIM model would use to tie the individual structural BIM models together at a level of accuracy not previously assembled along this corridor. Our team developed the 3D BIM models of 21 individual, unique structures along the BQE lacking almost any symmetry. Each model was created using available as-built plans from the 1950s, calibrating them to the current surfaces developed from the project LIDAR scans.

In parallel, our surveyors within the JV converted their 2D plans of the utilities and transit facilities into 3D models. Once all known aspects of the corridor were modeled, they were then assembled with the structural BIM models to evaluate and adjust the models to ensure they were properly integrated and matched the known underground layouts.

In May of 2021, the team completed the BIM and presented it to NYCDOT.

BIM modeling is more than just modeling in a particular program; it’s about understanding the real-world environment you’re creating virtually, then validating that what you understand in the real world is properly represented in the virtual environment. Delivering this task successfully was in large part the result of unwavering team commitment and coordination between many people. This was a rewarding experience for us, one which further refined our BIM capabilities and expanded our proficiency in the type of modeling that’s becoming more standard in designing the complex projects at which we excel.

Our hard-won work received acclaim from NYCDOT, and the skills and techniques used for this project are yet another example of how we remain on the leading edge.

The post America’s Next Top Bridge Model appeared first on Parsons Corporation.

The new Laycock Park Pedestrian Bridge, designed by our Calgary team, was successfully opened in 2019. This bridge re-establishes The City of Calgary North-South regional pathway and neighborhood access to Laycock Park that were disrupted by partial washout of an existing timber bridge during Calgary’s 2013 flood.

The new bridge, located on the Southwest corner of the intersection of 64th Avenue NE and Deerfoot Trail, is part of a greater re-naturalization project currently being implemented by The City for Laycock Park.

The new bridge, which features durable Alaskan Yellow Cedar (AYC) glulam girders, that pushed the limits of design and fabrication possibilities at 37-metres long without splices, has a pedestrian and eco-friendly coating system and the first example of a proprietary Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer – wrapped black spruce glulam timber pedestrian bridge deck, coated with a proprietary wearing course system, in Calgary. Harvested from regional renewable resources, AYC provides the required strength, stability, and service-life for the bridge girders and demonstrates the usability of timber as a modern, efficient, and elegant sustainable cold climate bridge construction material.

The materials used in the bridge, including stainless steel girder caps, bike rails, and flashing, align with The City’s vision for sustainable development and coincide with the public interest in protecting the environment and fighting climate change. The new bridge’s abutments and the banks upstream and downstream of the bridge were protected from erosion concerns through a combination of bioengineering and riprap bank protection solutions. The bridge has a ‘natural stone’ finish concrete form lined block retaining wing walls and granite stone bridge curbs that add to the structure’s aesthetics.

We presented the details of this bridge, including the bridge’s structural system, design innovations, and aesthetic design features, at the CSCE 2021 Annual Conference virtually in May 2021.

Sustainability is one of our core values. Backed by empowered teams, we implement best practices in corporate operations and solutions to address environmental risk and minimize our carbon footprint.

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