Accelerated Bridge Construction Applications in California- A “Lessons Learned” Report

The ever-increasing demands placed on the transportation network across the nation, coupled with the aging infrastructure, have led to the omnipresent need to rapidly replace, widen, and build new highway infrastructure, including bridge structures. Due to rapid economic and population growth, transportation planners are under increasing pressure to improve highway and bridge systems under added constraints of accelerated project delivery time. The vast majority of structures constructed in California require substantial design and construction effort, lending to extended project development and construction completion time. Recently, with pressures mounting to complete transportation improvement projects quickly, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has begun investigating viable alternative engineering practices to conventional construction. To achieve accelerated bridge construction (ABC) that reduces on-site construction time and mitigates long traffic delays, Caltrans engineers are developing new practices to design alternative bridge types using precast, segmental, and steel structure types.