A horizontally curved, precast-concrete, trapezoidal type of box-girder design, created more than a decade ago in Colorado, is gaining traction in Florida and Pennsylvania. Following the successful completion last year of an $85-million interchange in Orlando, where engineers estimated that the girders saved some $9 million, the girders have now been used on an Interstate 95 interchange in Jacksonville and adopted to code by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation.

Summit Engineering Group, a Modjeski and Masters company, served as both the design engineer of record and the contractor’s engineer on the $67-million redesign of the interchange between I-95 and JT Butler Boulevard in Jacksonville. SEMA Construction, the general contractor, reached out to Summit specifically for its experience with the curved, spliced U-girder in Colorado, notes Gregg Reese, president of Summit.