The Main Street Bridge - Columbus, Ohio

In June of 2006, PDM Bridge was the chosen by Kokosing Construction to be the fabricator for the Main Street Bridge in Columbus Ohio. This bridge is the first inclined, single rib arch in the United States. It is also the first inclined arch in the world to have separate pedestrian and vehicular decks.

The sculptural design that emerged starts as a single, unified section from both ends of the bridge gradually rising as it separated into three lanes for traffic and a fourth lane for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Steel was chosen over concrete, because a concrete structure would have exceeded the engineers estimate for the project.

The Ohio DOT required a full shop assembly on this project which ended up being quite a site in PDM’s Eau Claire Bridge Plant bay.

The vehicular deck is comprised of nine tub sections with each tub shipped in 2 piece sections because of the weight. ½ of each tub section weighed up to 300,000 lbs.

Interesting Facts:

• Project consists of over 6,000,000 pounds of steel.
• 175,000 holes were drilled.
• Full shop assembly requirement.
• Overall Bridge Length-660 feet. Main span is 400 feet.
• 35 foot three lane vehicular deck width with an 18 foot pedestrian deck.
• The bridge is designed for a 100 year life cycle.

The Main Street Bridge is scheduled to be complete and open to traffic in June 2009.

For related articles on this unique project, you can click the following links;

Modern Steel Construction magazine, September 2007
or
Franklin County, Ohio Web Page Article