By Craig Wilkins

Two of only a few remnants of St. Cloud's DeSoto Bridge vanished in seconds after they were imploded by powerful explosives on Oct. 10 and Oct. 16.

The blasts signaled a major advance in clearing away the old structure in order to build a new bridge in the same location.

District 3 officials expect the new bridge to open for four lanes of vehicle traffic in November 2009. The bridge will be completed the following year.

The old bridge that carried Hwy 23 through downtown St. Cloud was demolished in early October except for one remaining pier and the west abutment.

Its demolition followed a March inspection which showed the 51-year-old structure had four bent gusset plates. A decision followed to replace rather than rebuild the fracture-critical bridge.

Micky Klasen, project supervisor, said the contractor is now removing rubble from the piers in order to begin building piers and abutments for the new bridge.

When completed, the new structure will have sidewalks, separate bike lanes and overlooks.

If needed, the bridge can be expanded to carry six lanes of vehicular traffic.

The bridge’s abutments and railings will be faced with a granite veneer to reflect the region’s reputation as a national leader in quarrying and fabricating the mineral, Klasen said.

Click here for more Hwy 23 photos.

By Craig Wilkins

Seen from a distance, the huge milling machine resembles a giant razor shaving the face of a bluff along Hwy 14 near Lewiston.

Move closer, though, and the noise and the dust and the vibrations make it clear there is some serious work going on.

The milling machine, known as terrain leveler, follows the bluff’s surfaces closely, grinding off tons of dolomite each day.

District 6 is cutting the bluff back to prevent further rock slides onto the busy highway between Lewiston and Stockton.

The bluffs, consisting mainly of soft, porous stone, often crack, sending tons of rock crashing below.

The towering bluffs, 300 feet at their highest, are known regionally as The Arches.

When completed, crews will have moved the bluff back from the highway by 40 to 80 feet. The work will excavate more than 200,000 cubic yards of rock.

The milling machine, however, will soon give way to traditional drilling and blasting.

Mark Anderson, District 6 project engineer at Winona, said the contractor encountered dolomite much harder than the softer, partially eroded face rock.

That slowed the machine’s progress, requiring the switch to blasting in order to meet the project’s mid-November completion date. Hwy 14 is detoured between Lewiston and Stockton until the project is finished.

Anderson said beginning with the milling process helped give the project a head start and avoid pitfalls related to blasting.

Chris Dulian, a geologist and district soils engineer, said milling produces nearly uniform-sized rock that can be easily hauled away and used for aggregate.

Blasting, she said, is noisy, less safe and often results in large, irregularly shaped rock fragments that are difficult to transport.

The terrain leveler is generally used in mining operations. Dulian said this is the leveler’s first use for a highway rock cut in the United States.

“The leveler did a pretty good job until the contractor ran into the harder rock,” Dulian said.

By Laurie Gustafson

Editor's note: On Oct. 10, Commissioner Tom Sorel officially marked the completion of the Cost Estimation Process Improvement and Organizational Integration Project and launched the implementation of the new cost estimating and cost management process and guidelines that emerged from the two-year project.

"By enacting these measures, we ensure transparency by communicating our assumptions, while holding ourselves accountable to expectations, and help assure our stakeholders that we can deliver projects on time and within budget," Sorel said.

Something unique is happening in District 1 to implement new scoping, cost estimating and cost management initiatives.

“We created a new position, a program support engineer, to put a strong focus on scoping and cost estimating,” Mike Robinson, District 1 transportation engineer.

“We decided to make changes as part of the whole department focus on better scoping and cost estimating. We want to emphasize doing the job right.”

That focus began in late 2006 when Mn/DOT began a multi-phase project, in collaboration with the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota, to achieve accuracy, accountability and consistency in cost estimation and cost management efforts during planning, scoping, design and letting phases of project delivery.

Mike Tardy, assistant district engineer, spearheaded organizational changes in District 1 to implement scoping, cost estimating and cost management.

District 1 hired Nancy Sannes, formerly an estimating engineer in the Office of Technical Services, for the new position. She works with engineers across functional areas, such as bridge, hydraulics and land management, to develop cost estimates.

When District 1 managers decided to focus on improved scoping and cost estimating, they knew they needed to make some changes. Project managers develop the scope for the project before it enters the State Transportation Improvement Program, but now Sannes works as an independent resource to develop a detailed cost estimate that accompanies the project’s scoping report.

“With this approach, we will gain a more uniform process,” Robinson said. “We’ve defined who will do the work—independent from the project manager.”

Once a project enters STIP, Sannes works with the project manager to limit changes in scope that affect the cost estimate.

“We’ve also instituted stronger accountability for the project managers to manage projects within the estimate,” Robinson said.

Robinson believes that by achieving better outcomes, stakeholder expectations will be met as projects are delivered within budget and on time.

“Our stakeholders get frustrated, understandably so, when project timelines shift because a different project exceeded scope,” he said. “When we deliver projects as planned, we become more credible.”

As staff gain experience, Robinson wants to be sure that they look far enough in advance to identify the real needs of a project.

“We have to take a comprehensive view of projects and not overlook anything that could dramatically change the scope or cost estimate.

“Our goal is to do it right the first time and early in the project development,” he said. “There will always be uncertainties. We want to work hard to minimize those uncertainties.”

For more information, visit www.dot.state.mn.us/cost-estimating and Newsline, Workshop applies key concepts of cost estimating to newly funded projects (April 10, 2008) and Project addresses cost escalation issues (Nov. 28, 2007).

Mike Ginnaty, District 4’s assistant district engineer for program delivery, has been named the director of the new Office of Project Scope and Cost Management. His appointment was effective Oct. 15.   

Earlier this year, Ginnaty had taken on the responsibilities of project manager for Mn/DOT’s Cost Estimating Process Improvement and Organizational Integration Project in addition to his ADE duties. His new position will build upon the work of the initiative to establish the organizational structure, processes, resources, support and key internal and external relationships needed for success of this effort.

Ginnaty earned a civil engineering degree from the University of Minnesota in 1984.

Prior to joining Mn/DOT, he worked for a construction company as a project manager/estimator.

He began his Mn/DOT career in 1990 as a graduate engineer in Central Office Design Automation, then Measurement and Business Planning before moving to District 4 in 1994. In addition to his ADE role, Ginnaty also has served as Detroit Lakes’ bridge engineer and design engineer.                                 

He can be reached at 218-846-3604.

Editor’s note: Ginnaty offered his thoughts about the value of cost estimating in the April 10, 2008 issue of Newsline. Click here to see what he said.

Wildlife crossing, noise control and archeological surveying are just three of the topics featured in the September issue of the online publication, New Library Materials.

Mn/DOT Library publishes New Library Materials each month on the library’s Web site.  

“We catalog books, reports, magazines, CDs and DVDs as soon as they are received in order to provide timely information,” said Sheila Hatchell, Mn/DOT librarian.

Each issue includes is a listing of “just received” library materials and an informational article, such as how to search Web sites and PDF documents and how to set up a Google news alert.  

The current issue is available at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/library/newlibmat.html. Archived issues may be viewed at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/library/recacq_archive.html.

Contact the library at library@dot.state.mn.us or 651-366-3791 if you would like to be added to its distribution list and receive New Library Materials each month as an e-mail link.  

By Lisa Yang

Bernie Arseneau, Policy, Safety and Strategic Initiatives Division director, is the first recipient of the Kathy Swanson Outstanding Service Award, which he received at the Toward Zero Deaths conference in Rochester earlier this month.

The award recognizes an individual who has shown exceptional leadership in efforts to improve traffic safety in Minnesota, build partnerships and has demonstrated dedication and commitment to reducing the number of deaths and injuries on Minnesota roads.

Swanson, who was the Department of Public Safety’s traffic safety director, died earlier this year.

“Bernie is always leading traffic safety discussions and plans,” said Mike Robinson, Duluth district engineer, who nominated him for the award.

“Bernie’s passion and natural energy to excite people have been very successful in getting hundreds of people involved in highway safety initiatives. All those around him are mentored to make a positive difference in highway safety,” he said.

Arseneau is co-creator of the TZD initiative, a program that has dramatically reduced the number of traffic fatalities in recent years.

Arseneau also worked closely with the Federal Highway Administration to develop safety programs throughout Minnesota and last year completed the Strategic Highway Safety Plan.

He also championed an effort to create Mn/DOT’s Central Safety Fund, bringing needed funding to county roadways, cable median barriers and improved speed enforcement.

“Bernie first worked for me many years ago in the field of traffic safety,” said Robinson. “He had a passion for it then, and that passion has continued throughout his career at Mn/DOT.”

Mn/DOT’s Adopt-A-School program received an Aviation Education Program Award in late September from the National Association of State Aviation Officials.

This is the fourth award the department has received from NASAO since 2002 for developing aviation education and safety programs.

The award was presented to Janese Thatcher, Aviation Education, Safety and Training Section manager, at the Annual NASAO Convention and Tradeshow held in Anchorage, Alaska. The convention was attended by Aeronautics directors from more than 40 states, along with industry experts and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

The Aviation Safety, Education and Training Section developed the Adopt-A-School program in response to requests from airport managers for ideas, materials and activities for visiting school students and their teachers, Thatcher said. The program provides curriculum and materials for teachers to cover with their students in advance of their visit to the airport to make the visit more meaningful.

“This innovative program encourages an understanding of the social and economic impact that airports have on communities, as well as gives hands-on learning of science, math, technology and aviation careers,” she said. “The program also provides excellent materials and activities for use as an aviation summer camp and for other groups such as Girl and Boy Scouts and 4-H.”

For more information about Mn/DOT’s aviation education efforts, see http://www.dot.state.mn.us/aero/aved/index.html.