US-23 freeway reopens to traffic after emergency repairs on railroad bridge

The busy US-23 freeway south of Ann Arbor, closed more than two weeks because of safety concerns about an overhead railroad bridge, reopened to traffic Tuesday morning (Sept. 28).

Craig Heidelberg, engineer of operations at MDOT’s Brighton Transportation Service Center who worked with the contractor doing the repairs and helped oversee the project, talks about mobilizing quickly so the freeway could be open again.

As explained by Matt Chynoweth, MDOT chief bridge engineer, on a Sept. 16 edition of the podcast, a truck hauling a piece of construction equipment hit the railroad bridge on Aug. 20, tearing the bottom flange of one of the two main girders.

Davis Construction won a 10-day emergency repair contract on Sept. 23. Davis crews completed heat straightening operations last Thursday and a prime coat on the beam cured over the weekend. Crews repaired the bottom flange Monday. 

Heidelberg talks about the work involved in repairing the bridge and working with multiple community leaders and safety forces, including the Ohio Department of Transportation, to communicate the need to avoid the route while repairs were being done. 

Podcast photo: Ann Arbor railroad bridge above US-23 near Milan. 

Transcript

[Music]

Jeff Cranson: Hello. This is the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson, director of communications at the Michigan Department of Transportation.

[Music]

Cranson: This week, on a special edition of the podcast, I’ll be speaking with Craig Heidelberg who's in charge of operations on state highways in the Ann Arbor area. That means it's his job to keep the traffic flowing. The busy US-23 freeway had to be closed September 10 because a close observation revealed damage inflicted from a truck with an oversized load striking the bridge back in August. Craig talks about the emergency repairs to the bridge, the challenging traffic diversion involved, and the relief that came with reopening the freeway.

[Music]

Cranson: So, once again, I’m here with Craig Heidelberg who is the engineer of operations at the Brighton Transportation Service Center, which includes the area in Milan Township where the US-23 railroad bridge had to be repaired, and the freeway had to be closed during that period. Craig, thanks for taking time to explain this to people. Could you start just by talking about the project and what it entailed?

Craig Heidelberg: Yes, the—and, Jeff, thank you for having me on. I appreciate the chance to explain the project to the public. Yeah, the project was—you know, we had a high load bridge hit on September 10, or previous to September 10, but we got notified that the freeway needed to be closed on September 10. So, there were two projects involved. One was an emergency contract to get the traffic control out there to close the freeway in both bounds. Then there was also the emergency contract to fix the bridge from the high load hit, which included heat straightening and steel plates with bolting to secure that bottom flange of the bridge, so it could carry the load. That's kind of a summary of the project.

Cranson: Yeah, when you talk about that traffic control alone, you know, I’m sure that, you know, the layman doesn't even realize that that's a whole another component to this and requires usually separate contractors. And, you know, even after you felt—our chief bridge engineer and the region bridge engineer and everybody working for the railroad and working for the contractor decided this morning, Tuesday, that the bridge was safe and good for traffic to pass under, then you've got a whole other process to reopen the road with the contractor that was in charge of that component. So, yeah, talk about what's involved in that, especially as an engineer of operations who obviously hates ever closing a freeway.

Heidelberg: Yeah, normally it would be months of communication with the local governments and the law enforcement and getting input on the best way to close a road like this and the detours. We had hours. We were given direction on September 10 to close the freeway. We got MSP involved and our maintenance folks involved from multiple garages to get out there and close the freeway immediately in the interest of public safety and concerns of the structural capacity of the bridge. So, that was its own effort to initially close it, but then it was also all the traffic control to tighten it up with the closure as far as the barricades and the signage and the barrels and the digital boards kind of warning motorists as they approach the area to seek alternate route and then also the detour signs. So, there was a lot of signage required on this project. It took about three days to get everything up, two and a half to three days. Then once they got notice the roadway could be opened Poco, who maintained traffic as contractor, was able to get out there within an hour to get the freeway open, but there's still a couple days of work to get everything pulled down, all the traffic control, and all the devices removed. So, it was quite an effort from everyone involved.

Cranson: Well, as long as the main boards, you know, the DMS and Google and Waze and Mi Drive are telling people it's open, you're probably going to hit the vast majority of the travelers.

Heidelberg: Yeah, we definitely—I know we sent out a press release letting everyone know that the traffic's open, and we are trying to message on the DMS that the freeway is open to kind of get the word out. So, it's great news, and we’ll get traffic flowing again.

Cranson: So, be brutally honest, what were your thoughts when you heard from the bridge engineers, you know, two and a half weeks ago that we're going to have to close this and what went through your mind as far as worst-case scenarios?

Heidelberg: You know, I did think it was going to be longer than this, but of course any duration is going to be a great impact to the public. So, I won't lie, I thought it'd be maybe three or four weeks at a minimum, and it was at 18 days. Again, even at that, that's quite the impact to the public, and we realize that. We expedited everything as much as we could. My immediate thought—at this point, I’m not surprised by anything anymore being an MDOT for 20 years. I just looked at it as another challenge. We took it on, and we did the best we could with it.

Cranson: Well, talk about working with the contractor. I mean, they were great, it sounds like, about expediting the work themselves and getting in there and getting out of there. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Heidelberg: Yeah, both contractors, we had Poco with the maintained traffic devices.

Cranson: Right.

Heidelberg: Once they were awarded, they got that stuff out in a couple days and also removing will be within a few days. But then with Davis Construction, as soon as they got awarded, they were out the next day with the heat straightening and then primer the next day, which takes three days cure and happened over the weekend, so that was timely. Then late into Monday, they completed the steel repairs, and then we completed our inspections in the morning, and we got it open today.

Cranson: So, really break that down. I mean, you talk about the heat treatment of the steel and then putting a primer on it that, you know, might sound like just a minor detail, but explain why that's important.

Heidelberg: Yeah, so, you know, when the bridge got hit, the bottom flange got torn and bent, so to get that realigned so that the new plates could go flush to the new or to the bottom of the flange of the existing beam, they had to heat straighten it to get it flat or we wouldn't have had that contact that's important with the bottom flange and the steel repairs. Then the primer is so you don't get pack rust in between the repair and the old beam, so we seal that beam up so that repair will last a long time.

Cranson: Yeah, so what did you tell me you thought that daily—I mean, it's not the busiest freeway in the state but it's pretty busy—did you say you thought like 45,000 vehicles a day go through there?

Heidelberg: Yeah, it's around 40,000 vehicles a day that, you know, had to find alternate routes, which is not always an easy task. We understand that, and that's why we expedited everything as much as we can, but yeah, that's a lot of vehicles to try to divert.

Cranson: And it's a lot of, you know, interstate traffic, a lot of people coming and going to Toledo and points further south in Ohio, so you had to, you know, work on your communications with the Ohio DOT, too.

Heidelberg: Yeah, that was one of the key aspects that we tried to do outreach was to the commercial traffic and trying to divert their routes real early before they even approached the area. So, we did reach out to ODOT the day of the closure, and we coordinated messaging on their digital boards down in Ohio. We also, through our own State Transportation Operations Center, STOC, we communicated messaging all the way out in Lansing and Jackson and in the metro area of Detroit to try to just divert that commercial traffic away from this area.

Cranson: Yeah, and hope that those trucks didn't take the local roads, which obviously puts a real burden on them.

Heidelberg: Yeah, so that's what we were trying to avoid as much as possible.

Cranson: Well, thanks, Craig, is there anything else you want to add about the project and how things, you know, came to be?

Heidelberg: Well, I would just like to give thanks to everyone that's involved, from the MDOT side with maintenance and the Bureau of Bridges and communications folks and getting the word out, our administrative staff handling the calls, all the law enforcement with MSP and the sheriff's department and local police, and then our road agencies like Monroe County Road Commission and ODOT. We really appreciate all the efforts that everyone put into this, and we're happy that it's open that's for sure.

Cranson: Yeah, well, I'm happy for you that you guys were able to expedite and get it done quickly. I mean, you can't help the problem that created this and that was, yet another oversized load damaged the bridge, which we've had way too many of the past few years. So, all you can do then is try to mitigate the circumstances and fix what happened and that's what you guys did, so congratulations.

Heidelberg: Thanks, Jeff.

[Music]

Cranson: Thank you again for listening to this week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I would like to thank Randy Debler and Corey Petee for engineering this week's podcast. To subscribe to show notes and more, go to Apple podcasts and search for Talking Michigan Transportation.