Following the 1997 “Flood of the Century,” the Province of Manitoba studied a variety of options to improve Winnipeg’s flood protection facilities. The expansion of the Red River Floodway was the preferred option to best provide protection from the one in 700 year flood in the Winnipeg area. Replacement of existing railway and highway bridges was required to span the widened floodway channel and increase the clearance underneath each bridge.
Dillon acted as the prime consultant, providing overall program management of the predesign, detailed design and construction administration for the project.
Dillon oversaw all the bridge and transportation works including:
- Replacement of four highway bridges and four railway bridges over the expanded floodway
- A new highway overpass structure on Provincial Trunk Highways
- All associated road and trackage relocations.
PTH 15 Floodway Bridge
The bridge is a seven-span, 306 m long replacement bridge consisting of concrete substructures, 42 m long concrete Nebraska University girders and a glass fibre reinforced polymer concrete deck. The related roadworks include ~2 km of new roadway and the re-alignment of two major intersections.
CNR Reddit Railway Bridge Replacement
A temporary bridge was required at each of the three bridge locations so that the rail lines could remain operational during construction. The three replacement bridges were on an existing alignment and the fourth bridge was on a new alignment. The replacements at the three bridge sites were staged such that components of the detour bridge could be dismantled, transported and used again at the following site.
Construction of the detour structure at Redditt began with driving precast concrete piles. This was followed by the construction of cast-in-place concrete pile caps and pedestals. Following replacement of the structure, the steel spans and precast pier segments on the detour bridge were dismantled and transported to the third and final site.