National Orienteering Day

Were you an avid viewer of CBS’ “Amazing Race?”  Well rather than sitting on the couch watching, get on your feet and try doing.   This weekend the New England Orienteering Club Hosts two events to celebrate using map and compass to find your way in the woods, sometimes at breakneck speed.

orienteering as a skill dates back centuries but got its start as a sport in the 1970’s.  It’s a race in which participants or teams navigate unfamiliar terrain to  “control points” using topographic maps, a compass and their skill and intelligence.  Originally an on foot completion some modern-day meets are on mountain bike, horse, skis, canoe or “adventure racing” which is a combination of two or more disciplines.

This weekend’s events are on foot, the first hosted by NEOC is at the Horn Pond Conservation Area in Woburn Massachusetts on Saturday September 18 from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.  The Horn Pond event is directed toward beginners, families and children.  NEOC will have beginner events and race courses for those who just can’t help but play to win.  Horn Pond is just off Route 3A on the Woburn Winchester line, if you get lost on the way and stop to ask for directions say you’re looking for “Hawn Pawnd in Woobin.”

The second event is at Great Brook Farm State Park in Carlisle, Massachusetts on Sunday September 19 from 10:00 Am to 1:00 PM and is a competitive meet which features two “forest sprints” which combine off-road running and map navigation. 

Saturday is free and Sunday requires a registration and fee between $6 and $10 depending on the level of difficulty in course and participants.  Compasses are available for those who just don’t own one.

Related Links

New England Orienteering Club

U.S. Orienteering Federation

U.S. Adventure Racing Association

Horn Pond Conservation Area

USGS Topographic Maps Online

Trails.com

Reputation Means Everything

Tuesday, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Transportation voted to end its relationship with Parsons Brinkerhoff (PB) on the MBTA Green Line Extension Project.  Parsons, a widely respected international engineering design and construction management company, has been a big player in transportation infrastructure for more than hundred years getting its start as the key designer of the New York Transit System in the 1890s.  Today Parsons is connected as principal designer to such projects as San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit System, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority and the Los Angeles Metro Rail, and is said to have had a hand in every major transportation project in the U.S. 

With such an impressive résumé one would think that PB would be ideal for designing the Green Line Extension, and indeed they likely are, but their involvement has been terminated due in no small part to its association with the Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel Project (CAT), also known as the “Big Dig”.  There has been a laundry list of problems with the CAT project during the course of its construction and in the time since the official end of the project in 2007.  PB was part of a joint venture design/build team with Bechtel Corporation which designed and oversaw the project.   Under the watch of this joint venture, numerous scandals had arisen from theft of structural steel and the use of substandard concrete to the improper construction of joints that permit water to enter the main tunnel and failure in the design and construction of roof systems that led to the death of a motorist on July 10, 2006 when a ceiling section fell crushing her vehicle which was passing underneath.

Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick has long been a vocal critic of the management of the Big Dig from Parsons/Bechtel to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and has publicly questioned the wisdom of PB’s involvement in the Green Line Extension project.  It has been through his appointees to the Massachusetts DOT’s board that removed from the project.

Within the industry the failures of the Big Dig are associated more with Bechtel’s management and the graft of certain subcontractors than Parsons Brinkerhoff.  Parsons is principally known as the designer and many of the problems have been related to the management of the project which is perceived to primarily have been the responsibility of Bechtel.  Bechtel has a long history of project management issues which has been lampooned in the charge that Bechtel has as many lawyers as engineers and twice as many politicians.

Was PB culpable in the problems on the Big Dig?  Well certainly; they’re name was on the top of the project.   Has PB been made a scapegoat of everything that went awry for political purposes?  That is also likely the case.  The reader shouldn’t be making a judgment about Parsons based on this short discussion; the point is that Mass DOT has.  Reputation is everything and the most indelible part of reputation is what you have done lately.  In Massachusetts, PB is most recently been known and connected to malfeasance and incompetence associated the Central Artery, now they have judged on it and its hitting them in the pocket book.

PB will certainly survive this, having a long track record of success, 14,000 employees and 150 offices over six continents but would you?  Construction and engineering companies on average employ 20-250 people and don’t have the sheer number of projects to bolster their business with when losing such a contract, particularly in this economic climate.

 As an employee, reputation will still affect your wallet.  Our industry is small, the concept of six degrees of separation definitely applies but those connections often seem to be made in only two or three iterations.  A former employee is often tarred with the same brush as their former employer and an individual’s acts of unprofessionalism, negligence and gross errors will follow them a long time. 

Take care to build your successes on ethical behavior, professional business and engineering practices and attention to detail, this is your armor; any chinks in it will be exploited by time, your competitors and fate.  

 Relates Links:

MBTA Green Line Extension

Somerville Mayor Concerned over Potential Delays in Green Line Project

Parsons Brinckerhoff on LinkedIn

Recent Parsons Brinkerhoff Pojects

Maine Technical Source hosts Leica Geosystems HDS Live Roadshow

Friday, September 10, MTS and Leica will show the latest advances in 3 Dimension Laser Scanning in Woburn Massachusetts.  High definition laser scanning (HDS) has been steadily becoming a significant tool for surveyors and designers where intricate and remote detail is required on a project.  Early scanners were large, cumbersome and not very intuitive for surveyors’ use.  Leica has been in the forefront of integrating HDS with conventional surveying practices and prides itself in the modular nature of its HDS, GPS and conventional surveying equipment.

Through the efforts of the Wentworth Surveying Club and MTS’ generosity, up to 5 undergraduate students may attend this presentation which will also be attended by surveying professionals from the Boston Area.  If you are interested in learning more about HDS by attending the HDS Live Roadshow, contact Mike Hammer, through CCEV at the Perini Suite.

For more on 3D Laser Scanning also see:

https://witsurvey.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/3-dimensional-laser-scanning/

CSI: Phoenix

2010 NSPS / ACSM Student Competition

 Those weren’t your favorite Las Vegas law enforcement officers mapping a crime scene in the desert outside of Phoenix at the ACSM Annual Convention this last May, it was members of student teams from the University of Akron, Ferris State University, Michigan Technological University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Mexico State University, University of Maine and the University of Puerto Rico looking for clues and using their knowledge of surveying to tie them together.

The 2010 topic for the annual student competition was forensic surveying, each team was required to prepare a research paper and give a presentation on the use of surveying in the field.  Working throughout the semester, many of the teams consulted with local surveying firms and state police investigative units in preparing for the competition, focusing on accident reconstructions, the largest area of application to law enforcement forensic surveying.

Applications of this field of expertise include more than law enforcement; insurance companies regularly hire surveyors to find where an accident occurred in relation to the owners of real property to help determine were lability rests.  Archeologists use surveying to map the location and elevation of recovered evidence of earlier habitations at dig sites.  Surveying of real property itself which extends back to the days of Babylon and Ancient Sumeria is forensic surveying.  Measurements are made to evidence of possession marked by stone markers, fence lines, old stumps even of bare patches of earth that may indicate a path used by a particular party and are examined in conjunction with case law and statue in the determining the location of boundary lines.

The field of CSI-like forensic survey does however appear to be on the rise.  Advances in technology and the benefits of recording precise spatial relationship of an area no doubt facilitate recreating events relating to an investigation.  Carlson Software has just released its 2010 version of “CSI: Carlson Software Investigation.” Launched in 2004 it incorporates surveying routines for measurement and data collection, photos, spread sheets and other documents with 3D CAD routines.  Products don’t survive where there isn’t a market.

History of Student Competition

Surveying isn’t simply making measurements and plugging numbers into formulas; the science of mathematics is only one of the two faces of land surveying, the second is the art of evaluation.  Advances in technology has aided the profession by enabling surveyors greater precision in measurements and advanced software that has made complex time consuming computations quick and easy.   These advances have also harmed the profression in that younger surveyors take for granted the facility of a few key strokes and are convinced that greater precision bestows accuracy.

To promote the analytical capacities of young surveyors, the national Society of Professional Surveyors and the American Congress of surveyors and Mapping inaugurated its first student surveying competitions at their annual convention in 2002.  The theme was roman surveying; the entrants, University of Akron, Community College of Southern Nevada, Texas A&M University, New Mexico State University, Ferris State University, Southern Polytechnic State University, were required to research roman surveying practices, construct roman period surveying students and utilize the knowledge and tools to layout and level a structure.  In focusing on historical surveying practices, the participants had to rely on their own ingenuity, knowledge of surveying practice and mathematics in order to solve the thesis problem. 

After the first few years of the completions it seem to some that the focus on history to some began to override what they felt was to true purpose of event, namely preparing young surveyors for the future.  There was a perception that the thesis problem was becoming a dressing to the celebration of the past and the use of antiquated equipment was becoming a means unto itself.   There was also concern that students who were potential participants were being discouraged from entering the competition because of their perceived disconnect between the historical themes and modern day applications.  To address these concerns the 2010 competition’s theme was forensic surveying which has been widely considered a great success.  The winning team, the University of Akron, has received and invitation to delivery their presentation to their future colleagues and employers at the convention of Ohio professional surveyors society this October.

Related Links:

2010 winners

2009 winners

2002 competition on detail

Forensic Surveying

Carlson Software Investigations 2010

Tough Times for the MWRA (and the rest of us)

It can’t be easy being the MWRA.  They are a massive public agency constantly under the scrutiny of the public eye.  Operating a utility is expensive, which makes it a regular target of exposés in the local news papers and the yoke to its customers whenever a rate hike is required.  (The agency is largely self-funded and improvements to the system come directly from the sewer and water rates assessed to its customers.)

Currently there is a break in the cycle of animosity; they are being lauded for their efforts to repair the ruptured 120” diameter connector pipe that delivers drinking water to the Boston Area.   Soon however the praise of early efforts will turn, whether justly or not, into recriminations and accusations of incompetence and unpreparedness.  The Boston Globe reports that House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo will convene hearings as soon as this week to probe the failure.  That’s just a fact when you are the central player in events that are now affecting nearly 2 million people in 31 cities and towns in the Boston metropolitan area ranging as far south as Canton, Lexington to the north and Waltham to the west. 

The rupture was first detected around 10:30 AM Saturday, shortly thereafter growing to, in terms expressed by the MWRA itself, a “catastrophic failure.”   Water escaped the broken conduit at a rate of 8 million gallons an hour.   The source of the failure is a metal collar joint between 2 sections of the pipe.  The flow of water has been stopped and the joint is currently being replaced by Barletta Heavy Division, the same contractor who installed the pipe in 2003.

The rupture has resulted in under-treated back up sources being used to continue water delivery to the communities affected mainly to facilitate sanitation.  A boil water order has been issued by the Commonwealth; any water that will be used in cooking, drinking, busing of teeth: any water that might be ingested by a person at all, should be boiled for at least a minute to kill any bacteria that may be present in the water.  

The MWRA now reports that the repairs are likely complete.  Confirmation is first required through several tests of the pipe the results of which are expected shortly.  If all goes well, drinking water will be restored to the affected communities by Wednesday.

Getting Ahead of the Curve

The MWRA is a relatively young Massachusetts agency.  First established in 1985, it is the heir to the Metropolitan District Commission and is the latest incarnation of the public utility which dates back to 1845.  The history of it predecessors is one on perpetually underestimating the growth of Boston.  Each improvement in the system prior to the MWRA had been made in the face of inadequacy of the existing system to meet the needs of immigration and growth prompted by the success of the Massachusetts economy.

Upon its creation, the MWRA was faced with many repairs resulting from years of neglect of the water system but it was also more forward thinking than its predecessors.  In 1996, it embarked on an ambitious plan to expand the quality and delivery capacity to its current and future customers.  The project included the Metrowest Tunnel, a 14’ diameter, 16.7 miles long extending from Marlborough to Weston (completed 2003), the John J. Carroll Water Treatment Plant and storage tank (45 million gallon capacity – completed 2005) in Marlborough, the Loring Road storage tank (20 million gallons – completed 2001) and the Norumbega storage tank (115 million gallons – completed 2004) in Weston in addition to major improvements at many of its existing facilities. The pipe that ruptured Saturday was part of these improvements.

 

Bigger Questions

Major recently completed public works projects in Massachusetts have been in the spot light lately.  Failure of this pipe, failure of the ceiling system in the Ted Williams Tunnel in 2006 and the discovery of major leaks in the Central Artery Tunnel are alarming.  Beyond the headlines generated by these incidents, a larger question as to ethics in our industry needs to be examined.  From designers to managers and contractors, we need to ask ourselves if we are doing the right thing. 

The ceiling failure is still under litigation but reportedly there were many poor decisions made in the design and construction including the use of substandard materials, all of which were driven with cost in mind rather than safety.  Allegedly leaks in the tunnel were the result of rushed work to maintain schedules again with money in the form of incentives or fines being the main consideration.  

The failure of the pipe connection Saturday could simply be the result of a material failure; statistically any manufactured component has the potential of failure due to random errors in the manufacturing process.  However the failure of the joint lumped in with these other recent occurrences leaves one with an uneasy feeling that perhaps more bad news is to come and wondering if there is a patent problem in the way we do business today that needs to be addressed.  

Historically most every poor decision in design and construction has been made in the name of the almighty dollar.  These choices often are not made out of malevolence or greed but fear of the ramifications of fixes, corrections, delays and final costs.  It is essential that people within our industry not only know what is right but have the fortitude to do right.

List of communities affected by the boil water order:

Arlington, Belmont, Boston , Brookline, Canton, Chelsea, Everett, Hanscomb AFB, Lexington, Lynnfield W.D., Malden, Marblehead, Medford, Melrose, Milton , Nahant, Newton, Norwood, Quincy, Reading, Revere , Saugus , Somerville, Stoneham , Stoughton , Swampscott , Wakefield , Waltham, Watertown, Winchester , Winthrop

More Information on MWRA Water System: http://www.mwra.com/04water/html/wat.htm

Also see:  MWRA Discharges Untreated Wastewater into Quincy Bay

Famous Last Words

My old survey office had a wall of shame, a place where we could memorialize blunders and bozos so that perhaps we could learn from others gaff’s and avoid such pitfalls ourselves.  The wall began humbly with a late 50’s subdivision plan in Burlington, Massachusetts in which not a single block could be mathematically closed (the best block missed by 40′) and a deed a colleague came across when he was at UNB that had the point of origin as “beginning at the spot you and me stood yesterday.”  

Notice the 15 degree change in the bearings in these two recorded plans by the same surveyor. I know this to be the result of a CAD north rotation.

 

 The wall quickly grew, the oddities you come across when surveying; restrictions against a fee ownership going to “Irish Peoples or other foreigners” (a deed in Porter Square, Cambridge MA c.1890), a series of 3 subdivisions by a now defunct survey firm in the Lowell area, each filed within a year of one another with supposed common lines, none of which share common bearings and upon an actual field survey revealed that all 3 overlap, a modern definitive subdivision in Woburn stamped only by a PE  and of course any number of plans beginning with the word “compiled.”   

It was a conversational piece, a teaching tool and it was humbling because it included a couple of our own pieces and that of another surveyor we all held in very high esteem.   Nobody’s perfect.  

The band has since broken up, we’ve all moved on to other firms, taking with us bits that are still folded up and tucked away hoping to be displayed again.  I keep mine in my head and realized only recently that I’ve added a new wing to the museum containing quotes, I’d like to share a few and their context: 

“It’ll be done, noon tomorrow” – This was the canned response of our staff engineer gave us whenever asked if he had completed the work a client was waiting for.  This commitment was always made while he was in the midst of “working on something” online.  In time the saying was simply “noon, tomorrow” and of course tomorrow never came.   In the end though I don’t know who is more culpable here, he for making the claims or us for hoping he actually would come through. 

“What water tower?” – My good friend Brian Burrill relates a story where a fellow office technician at a firm he worked for on the North Shore was have a little difficulty with some calculations but thought he had isolated the solution in a mislabeled traverse station.  The tech knew the site fairly well and believed the mislabeled point in question was one nearly at the foot of a town water tower.  Asking the crew if the point they had occupied to make the critical locations was next to the water tower, both chief and instrument operator insisted they knew what bounds he was talking about but there wasn’t any water towers on the job.  completely flummoxed, he visited the site with the crew and had them walk him to the control point.  On arriving at the point, they pointed and said “there’s the point” upon which he had them turn around. “And there’s the tower.”  Silence could be heard as the chief and transit man stood looking as if a water tower had magically appeared before their eyes not more than 30′ away. 

“It won’t take any time at all, the site is flat and white, like the plan” – I don’t know who actually said this, it predated my time at the firm where I first heard it.  It had actually been truncated to simply “flat and white” and was used by frustrated staff when tasked with a job that was either not looked at properly or taken at a discount to get work in the door during slow times.  I think we’ve all seen one too many flat and white surveys. 

“What’s the difference between a PK and a PC?”  “A Career.” – This was an exchange between a junior transit man at a firm I used to work for and his salty chief.  The T-man had been with us for nearly a year although he didn’t last much longer.  I don’t know if he got the joke. 

“Drill hole maker” – This was actually what some of the field staff called the hand drill at one of the firms I used to work for.  It was derived by one of the staff while asking for the tool but failing to remember its name.  Nothing special to this one, I still find it singular in that it uses the name of the actual tool to describe itself.  

“We’re using [name withheld]’s survey control; right, wrong or indifferent” – This was a declaration made by the superintendent of a construction management firm building a 26 story highrise in Boston.  My firm had been subcontracted to the steel erector to plumb steel and provide curtain wall layout.   We had discovered discrepancies in the interior control of the building which we had brought to the attention of our client, the GC and the project’s surveyor.  When we found it, it was a small error, relatively easy fix but for whatever reason the other surveyor wouldn’t recognize it.  By the end of months of correspondence and a number of field exercise to prove its existence, the fix was still relatively cheap, this however would change in a meeting from which the quote above comes.  The participants were the GC, the erector and both survey firms who could not come to a consensus, so the declaration was made “right, wrong or indifferent….”  After that meeting, through the force of his will alone and field fix after field fix to accommodate the broken control, the building went up.  The extras for the fixes weren’t part of the contract of course and our client sued to recover those expenses.  A judgement against the GC was entered in Superior Court in the vicinity $200k.  Poor choice of words.  Incidentally I understand that a tipping point in the case wasn’t that we were right and they were wrong but in the quality of our field notes and record keeping.

Trimble Express to Stop in the Boston Area April 22

Trimble Express is a travelling roadshow for many of Trimble’s newest products.  While this is common enough amongst software developers and hardware manufacturers, what Trimble is showing looks to be worth seeing.

Trimble will be discussing their “Total Business Center” office software that purports to integrate field data and design data to support heavy construction and interfaces seamlessly with AutoCAD Civil 3D.  They will also be presenting VRS which is an on demand (pay for) network to improve real-time GPS surveying, very similar to the COORS service Maine Technical Source has been offering its New England customers for a couple of years now.  While both of these will no doubt be interesting what will really light up the day is Trimble’s VX Spatial Station.  As the name suggests the Spacial Station is a 3D laser scanner but it appears to be so much more.

Early 3D Scanning

The earliest scanners like CYRA’s 2500 were awesome tools that were often difficult to work with.  The 2500 could collect large amounts of data in relatively short time in the field and offered remote access to difficult and dangerous locations.  In 2003, Cullinan Engineering was faced with the task of locating the ceiling beams in the Massachusetts Turnpike tunnel beneath the Prudential Center in Boston in support of proposed development at the Pru.  What would have taken weeks as a conventional survey using scissor lifts, multiple field crews and moving lane closures took only 2 nights using a 2500. 

Scanners at the time were problematic for other existing conditions surveys though, they were difficult to use.  The units were mounted on heavy camera tripods, could only scan a limited grid area in one direction at a time, used massive batteries, required the use of special targets and a large degree of post processing to tie the individual scans together and into survey control.  Another roadblock was the price, the entry-level cost of hardware and software was in the vicinity of $150,000.  This was a steep price for limited applications to existing conditions surveys.  It took Leica Geosystems acquisition of CYRA to address many of these problems.

Leica Changes the Game

In 2005, Leica introduced its HDS3000 which revolutionized 3D scanning in that the units mounted on survey tripods and tribrachs and were capable of single 360° scans.  In being able to occupy actual control stations and through improvements in software, Leica really made 3D scanning a realistic choice for nearly any kind of existing conditions survey.  As scanning became more feasible, more firms started to get into scanning which in turn began to bring prices down a bit.  There was still a problem that many surveyors were uneasy with; a relatively large expense for an apparatus that couldn’t be used for any survey tasks other than existing conditions and deformation monitoring surveys.  Boundary, layout, control and other surveys still required the use of a total station. 

Trimble VX Spatial Station Bridging the Gap

The VX Spatial Station incorporates a 360° servo driven laser scanner into a reflectorless robotic total station that is also equiped with a video camera.  As a pure scanner it operates very slow, making only about 15 observations a second as opposed to the 5000+ points acquired per second in most dedicated scanners but the market has been waiting for a versatile tool like this since the advent of laser scanning and it is only a matter of time before the scanning capabilities of a “spatial station” is improved.  From data acquisition to field layout, spatial stations will afford a survey crew a much larger toolkit to address a client’s needs.

Trimble Express 

Trimble will be demonstrating many of its new products at Keystone Precision Instruments in Milford Massachusetts, Thursday April 22.  Itinerary and registration link below:

“Trimble and its local distribution partner, Keystone Precision Instruments, are
pleased to bring Trimble Express to your area. REGISTER today to discover how
new Trimble surveying technology will help improve your productivity and deliver
results more efficiently and faster than ever before. Presentations and Hands-on
demonstrations of the latest surveying technology: including solutions for
scanning, monitoring, and land surveying. Plus, learn new tips from the experts!

Time: 7:30am – 4:00pm
Agenda: 7:30-8:00 Session 1 – What’s New
9:00-9:15 Break
9:15-11:30 Session 2 – Trimble Access and TBC
11:30-12:30 Lunch
12:30-1:30 Session 3 – Spatial Imaging
1:30-1:45 Break
1:45-2:30 Session 4 – Integrated Surveying & VRS
2:30-4:00 Outside Demonstrations”

Registration: http://www.trimbleexpress.com/register/us-express-2010_keystone.aspx?pn=4

See more about laser scanning.

2009 Rotch Traveling Scholarship Entries on Display at Wentworth Institute of Technology

Some of the entries in the first round completions for last year’s Rotch Travelling Scholarship will be on display at the Casella Gallery at Wentworth Institute of Technology through April 23.  The problem presented in the preliminary competition was to design a canopy system in Downtown Crossing so the Brattle Annex Book Shop could operate a temporary storefront on an empty parcel next door. The design challenge called for a solution that encourages both daytime and nighttime pedestrian traffic.  Finalists selected from these entries moved on to the second stage of the design competition, where they were asked to develop an interdisciplinary design incubator for the creative economy on the site of the Boston Ice Company’s ice-storage warehouse located in Boston’s New Market area.  The participants were required to adapt and transformation the existing building to the proposed use. 

The various approaches to the Brattle Book Store lot looked at from a survey layout and construction perspective are a microcosm of the relationship of architects and builders.   All of the design focused on an imaginative and innovative approach to the problem but a good third neglected or even willfully disregarded the question that is most central to a builder: how does it go together?  Two designs particular come to mind here, the first employs what appears to be a living curtain of green plants to hide storage areas for book stacks for when the shop is closed.  Looking at the street elevation and plan views, it is completely unclear how the organic forms would be laid out and in what manner the overhead greenery supported.  The second design employs a tiered series of scaffolding-like supports strung with what appears to be plastic sheeting.  The canopy system is reminiscent of a shanty town or favela.  “Where does the water go?” would be the first thought of any construction professional, here it seems not to be of any concern at all to the architect.  Shantys are notorious for leaking, it would drive an engineer mad trying to model the course of a rail droplet through the layers of canopy.  It should be noted that the space is primarily used to sell books.

Most of the designs on display manage to straddle the aesthetic and practical and provide interesting solutions that on the surface seem eminently buildable.  Those are the firms you hope to work with, representing innovation without sacrificing the practical.  There is however that subset that wants to be the next Frank Gehry.   Perhaps they aren’t aware that his designs regularly bust budgets like MIT’s Stata Center which exceeded its initial estimate of $200 M by another $100 M and coincidently still manages to leak like a sieve.  Or perhaps they don’t care; Frank doesn’t.

Read about the 2010 scholarship finalists in “the BSA Re-envisions Boston City Hall”

Tyngsborough Bridge Reconstruction

Tyngborough Bridge is a graceful arch bridge over a scenic stretch of the Merrimack River that is currently being refurbished under the Mass Highway Bridge Program.  Originally constructed in 1930, it has an overall length of 656’ but is notable in that it is the longest simple span steel arch bridge in Massachusetts, having a 547’ main span.  It is also one of only 13 known steel rib arch bridges of any configuration in the state and one of only two to utilize an open, braced rib design, the other being the Boston University Bridge.

First slated for repair in 1994, the bridge has not been used since 2006 when a temporary bridge adjacent to the site was completed to facilitate the improvements by relocating vehicle and foot traffic. The bridge is the only crossing point of the Merrimack River north of Lowell and south of Nashua NH and until it’s close, carried and average daily traffic of 22,300 vehicles.     

The project actually consists of two bridges in tandem.   There is a smaller bridge goes over the a railroad freight line that runs along the west bank of the river.  This bridge shares its easterly pier with the westerly end of the large arch bridge that spans the Merrimack.

The railroad bridge is slated for complete demolition and replacement while the large arch bridge is to be a rehabilitated.  The existing sidewalk and bridge deck will be completely removed and replaced along with any rotted stringers and floor beams.  The bridge will also be sandblasted and repainted. It still has its original paint job from 1931.

The bridge carries State Routes 113 and 3A and the intersections at the easterly and westerly approaches to the bridge have long been problems.  Improvements in the form of roadway and signalization were completed to the east of the bridge at Frost Road and Pawtucket Boulevard in 2006 that greatly improved the flow of traffic.  Westbound traffic turning north onto Middlesex Road is still a major problem resulting in all westbound traffic sometimes backing up the entire length of the bridge.   To address this, MassDOT has included in the current bridge improvements plans widen the road on the westerly approach to accommodate a right turn only lane for west bound traffic. The widening will require the construction of an MSE (Mechanically Stabilized Earth) Wall.

After all is done, the existing temporary bridge has to be removed.  When installed in 2006 the whole intersection on the east side of the river was shut down and each section of the bridge was pushed across the river one at a time.  A similar process is being looked at for removing the temporary bridge.  After the span is removed the substantial concrete piers need to be removed from the middle of the river.

Currently the project is in its inital phase and the focus is on relocating utilities, which can often be time-consuming.  Once going at full speed the project should be pretty interesting to watch.

The estimated $17 M project is currently 35% completed with a finish date in 2012.

More images of Tyngsborough Bridge by Karen Westphalen, principal IBeam Images

Mass DOT Bridge Data Sheet              National Bridge Invetory Data            Mass DOT Project Information Page

WIT Surveying Club Executive Board Elected

President: Dan Powers (CM ’12), vice president: Rob Moschetta (CM ’12), secretary: Derek Ullman (CM ’12), treasurer: Kevin Hoffmann (CM ’12). The focus of the club as stated by the executive board and members is to promote a greater knowledge and understanding of surveying through the professional development of its membership by education, student activities and outreach to clubs in the allied professions and the community at large. On the drawing board for this summer are projects for simulated heavy construction layout and the foundation of a campus GIS.