Bold engineering changes cut time, maintained traffic and increased long-term maintenance ease on a $114.6-million upgrade of the Interstate 5/State Route 16 interchange in Tacoma, Wash.
Guy F. Atkinson Construction, Renton, Wash., proposed to change a 1,061-ft-long ramp from one with steel tub girders to a precast segmental structure—a first for the Washington State Dept. of Transportation. Atkinson and value engineer McNary Bergeron and Associates, Old Saybrook, Conn., also redesigned and built, in less than a year, a critical-path temporary bridge with bulb-tee girders rather than steel girders.