Roads & Bridges magazine has ranked the Boyers Mill Road Bridge Replacement Project among its Top 10 Bridge awards for 2017. The magazine’s editors awarded this Frederick County-based project—which revitalized a bridge that had long-exceeded its service life by incorporating precast concrete beams—with the number three spot. WM performed the design services for this project: These services entailed field surveying; right-of-way; traffic engineering; roadway design; bridge design; SWM/drainage design; and obtaining environmental permitting.
This bridge replacement was singled out from other, similar projects, across the entire country because of its urgency and its profound complexity. The Roads & Bridges article about the Boyers Mill Road Replacement articulated the County’s need succinctly: “Private lake. Crucial drinking water source. Popular recreation area. Restricted homeowners association lacking a degree of pedestrian mobility. And in the middle of it a bridge past its service life. For Frederick County, Md., it was an opportunity to do something never before done in the state.”
The most profound project challenge came from the precast concrete beams themselves—they were the largest and the longest beams ever used on a Maryland bridge, so simply getting them to the work site was a formidable task that required creative thinking and adroit strategizing. WM’s Team also had to ensure that their design was constructible, and that it benefitted the area residents—who complained about an overall lack of mobility and access.
The article quotes David Borusiewicz, WM’s Project Manager for this work, about the importance of cultivating context-specific designs that serve the surrounding community’s needs: “There is a trail that circumnavigates the entire lake, but the community, which is about 5,000 strong, lacked access directly across the lake for foot traffic … So the addition of the sidewalk was very important to community mobility.”
Congratulations the WM Team for this powerful recognition. To read more about why our work was honored, head over to Roads & Bridges magazine here.