Four highway interchanges were recently constructed under the Federal Economic Stimulus Initiative. The projects were built to provide much needed traffic capacity, enhanced safety, and economic sustainability. The projects are: McTavish Interchange, Highway 17, Saanich, BC McCallum Interchange, Highway 1, Abbotsford, BC Clearbrook Interchange, Highway 1, Abbotsford, BC Nelson Interchange, Highway 99, Richmond, BC Each interchange was built around an operating highway and had individual circumstances that influenced the design of the new interchange bridge. As a result, custom designs were created with unique features which stretched the boundaries of the conventional approach to bridge design. In all cases the projects were challenged by a fixed project completion date of March 31, 2011, which allowed only very short time for project delivery and which was particularly inconvenient for bridge construction and finishing work. In consequence, a non-traditional approach was taken to achieve accelerated delivery using a modified design-bid-build approach which included pre-procurement of long lead-time components and advanced works for site start-up using day labour. The paper describes the particular and unusual factors that drove the design process for each project and the interesting bridge designs that resulted. The paper also discusses how significant savings in project schedule were achieved by overlapping design with construction; how the risks inherent with this process were controlled; how highway and bridge designs were optimized holistically; and how significant economic advantages were achieved by the novel project delivery method that was used.
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