Photo from InQuik website.
Stepping briefly into her future role as Public Works commissioner, Laura Wadhams reviewed a laundry list of 18 items with Genesee County legislators in the absence of Tim Hens during Monday’s Public Service meeting.
Though it won’t be long before Hens hangs up his commissioner’s name tag for good, as he is set to retire May 30. Wadhams steamrolled through the list of county road, airport and bridge projects and related financial requests, including the way in which they’re approaching a replacement for the Colby Road Bridge.
It just might put Genesee County on the map of innovation.
“So our plan for this bridge is actually a new solution for bridges. They call them InQuik bridges. It comes as a … pre-engineered form, stay-in-place form, with all rebar in it. So if we buy this, it's kind of like buying precast. You buy this, you set it, and you fill it with concrete. You can set it with an excavator instead of a crane, so there's a lot of savings in costs and time there,” Wadhams said. “So we're going to try that for this one this year. It comes on a truck and sets it with an excavator. There's a couple of people in the works with these projects statewide, but they've been built quite a bit out in Colorado and other states. They just got approved by New York State in the last year.”
This will be a test case for the county, and if it works out, then other bridges may be pursued with this same system, she said. The county has bridges of mixed materials, such as arch pipes for Rose Road Bridge, and a timber deck at one on Attica Road, she said. Colby Road’s bridge is steel, which doesn’t fare so well in our wintry, icy weather, Wadhams said.
InQuik bridges are touted as “a full solution above the foundation,” with lightweight components, reinforcing steel and formwork lifted into place, spliced together and then cast in place to complete the reinforced concrete structure.
Installation is completed in less than a week after the foundation, and it’s durable for 75+ years, website selling points state.
“This one is locally funded, so I think this one specifically we'll be able to design it this year and bid it in the spring and then construct it next year. Typically, it's a year to 18 months for design,” she said. “Typically, the steel deck ones are in the 60s to 70s era. So the steel decks just don't hold up typically in our climate. I mean, you get salt on tires that track over the top of them, so the girders start deteriorating pretty quickly right at the seam where the concrete stops, and those did. We've got a couple of them that are still left; this Colby Road is one of them.
“It’s actually going to be really interesting. I mean, that system that I was talking about hasn't been used yet in New York State, so whoever the first one is, is going to have a lot of people that are watching that, there's going to be other counties trying to see how this all fits together,” she said. “But there's a couple other counties looking at it for other bridges too. So we might not be the first.
"But they do it across the country, like I said, in Colorado. I've seen it on a bunch of presentations at the conferences that I've gone to, so it seems to work really, really well," she said. "So we're excited about it.”
The total capital project balance is $2,182,455.62 from 1% sales tax funds, and legislators approved her request not to exceed $129,800 for a consultant agreement with Barton and Loguidice in Rochester for the Colby Road Bridge. The request will go to the full Legislature for approval on May 28.
