Surrounded by towering brown rock walls, trees mainly shed of their leaves, and sweeping sandbars, the tawny brown bridges crossing the Wisconsin River in Lone Rock blend right in.
Exactly how they were designed.
“When viewed from the river in your motorboat, canoe or kayak, the visual impact is dramatic,” Lower Wisconsin State Riverway Board Executive Director Mark Cupp said.
Cupp was one of six speakers joining dozens of people to cut the ribbon Monday on the new bridges along Highway 130 in the southeast corner of Richland County.
The project involved shifting the alignment a little to the west from the decades-old steel truss structures and replacing them with two 1,000-foot girder bridges.
It also involved a landmark accomplishment: the first large-scale Design-Build project completed in the state.
“We’re excited to continue to innovate through Design-Build, like we did here in Lone Rock, so that we can save time and be more efficient with our construction projects,” Wisconsin Department of Transportation Secretary Kristina Boardman said.
Design-Build links engineers with contractors essentially from the get-go, allowing construction to begin even before designs are fully complete and improving communication. The result here was a project completed earlier, efficiently, and with key safety and traffic flow features.
“It has been an honor to help guide the department in its first true design-build project,” Kraemer North America Project Manager Brent Freeman said. “And while we couldn’t control the rise and fall of the river, we all definitely rose to the challenge of adaptability to navigate any troubling waters and stay on course.”
Even with Kraemer serving as prime, many WTBA members proudly contributed as subcontractors and consultants on the work including (but not limited to) design lead SRF Consulting Group, Hoffman Construction Company, AECOM, Arbor Green Inc, County Materials Corporation, DL Gasser, EXP, HNTB, Interstate Tree & Land Clearing, Kapur & Associates, KL Engineering, Inc., LYCON INC., and Mega Rentals.
The surrounding landscape will inevitably shift from brown to winter white and, next year, the green of spring. But these stunning, tawny brown bridges should stand the test of time.
“Long after our words have echoed off the bluffs today and our footprints have washed from the sandbars, the new bridges at Lone Rock that span this scenic river of history–this river of a thousand isles–these spectacular bridges will be admired and appreciated for generations,” Cupp said.
