Any Arizonian knows that Interstate 15 offers a breathtaking view of the state’s rugged landscape. Now a portion of the highway has been recognized for its infrastructural attributes as well. The Daily Miner reports that The American Public Works Association selected the Virgin River Bridge No. 6 rehabilitation as the Project of the Year. It was selected among other projects with worth between $25 million and $75 million.
“This award acknowledges the creativity and cooperation that went into making a critically needed improvement to a vital regional economic corridor,” Dallas Hammit, Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) state engineer and deputy director for transportation, said in a statement to the Daily Miner.
In the country’s 102 largest metro regions, driver take two hundred million trips over defective bridges every day. Virgin River Bridge No. 6 is no longer one of these structures. This bridge was part of a $50 million renovation project to repair 30 miles of I-15. While this process created lane shifts at the time, crews paved the highway and repaired four bridges in total, making the entire highway more structurally sound.
And this project was no small feat. To repair this bridge, crews needed 910,000 pounds of reinforcing steel, 4,000 cubic tons of concrete, and 3 million pounds of structural steel. In the end, there was 4,000 tons of soil moved and 3,6000 asphalt on the road, according to the Daily Miner. All of this happened 100 feet above the narrow Virgin River, so crews looked down at a canyon below.
The Daily Miner reports that this is not the only honor that the ADOT now holds for this bridge. During the Build America Awards, the bridge project was also awarded the Marvin M. Black Partnering Excellence Award. It is also now an International Partnering Institute Partnered Project of the Year.
The ADOT will be repairing other I-15 bridges in the coming years.