BR 1-159 Bridge on James Street Over Christina River Project

BR 1-159 bridge project includes bridge replacement works that entail construction of a new 393’-11 7/8”, 5-span bridge on James Street over Christina River in New Castle County, Delaware. The existing bridge BR 1-159 is structurally deficient, with its movable portion inoperable. Its steel superstructure exhibits heavy corrosion and section loss. The new bridge structure is being constructed just east of the existing bridge alignment. The new bridge has a curb-to-curb width of 28 feet and a 10-foot wide bike and pedestrian way. The out-to-out width of 42’- 5 ½” consists of two 12-foot lanes, two 2-foot shoulders, two 1’-8 1/4” parapets, and 1’-1” for a handrail

The instrumentation monitoring plan included the installation of geotechnical instrumentation to monitor subsurface soil conditions around the existing seventy-two (72) inch Christina River Force Main (CRFM) concrete sewer pipe. Protecting the utility against adverse impacts associated with equipment loads, ground settlement and vibrations as a result of the planned construction activities, including, but not limited to, the construction of any temporary works over and/or adjacent to the CRFM, was of paramount importance at this project.

Rite Geosystems Inc., our USA Company, was entrusted to supply complete geotechnical instrumentation for the project. Instrumentation included In-place inclinometers to monitor the biaxial lateral soil movement to verify that movements are within design tolerances and Piezometers to monitor the pore water pressure. Monitoring of the above-mentioned instruments has been executed successfully, giving the client the necessary information required for the smooth progress of the project.