Best of 2005 Awards

World War II Veterans Memorial Highway - Bennington-Hoosick Bypass

Award of Merit: Highway and Roadway

In limbo for more than 40 years due to political and budgetary difficulties, the World War II Veterans Memorial Highway, also known as Vermont Rt. 279, finally opened to traffic in July.

The 5-mi.-long road has a 1.4-mi. section in New York and proceeds northeasterly through pristine Vermont wilderness to just north of downtown Bennington. Almost a third of the work took place in New York.

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The Vermont Agency of Transportation awarded Clough Harbour & Associates of Albany, N.Y., an initial design contract in 1993, launching a 12-year project that aimed to preserve the area's aesthetics and limit harm to wildlife. The design took up most of the early years because of the need to address various ecological concerns, while the construction portion took place over the last five years.

The project cost $56 million, including a core construction budget of $33.4 million, and involved:

• displacement of more than 500,000 cu. yd. of soil and rock
• construction of six new bridges, including a 860-ft., five-span, curved-girder bridge over the Walloomsac River
• rehabilitation of six existing bridges
• and construction of a multidirectional interchange at the eastern terminus.

The remainder of the project budget included costs for wetland mitigation, site construction, consultant fees, and agency expenses.

"It was well orchestrated, well done," said one of the Best of 2005 judges.

Another added, "It was a lot of work for the money."

Environmental concerns and the location of historic bridges and monuments in the area strongly influenced the project's sequencing. To showcase the area's natural beauty, engineers designed the road to provide motorists with stunning views of the rolling terrain.

The project required a broad cooperative partnership with all stakeholders. At times, the project's consultants had to foster compromise between various reviewing agencies with competing goals. For instance, the project had to meet the standards and environmental-protection rules for both New York and Vermont.

"It's a community involvement job," one of the judges added. "You've got a lot of Sierra Club types up there."

The engineering team designed the road to avoid significant excavation and instead have flat horizontal curves on tall embankments. The design called for the embankments to blend into the terrain by extending earthen slopes and taking advantage of the densely wooded area. The team created before-and-after artistic renderings to demonstrate that the alignment would also shield nearby residences from looking onto traffic.

The design of the bridge crossing the Walloomsac River required extensive flood-plan features and accommodations for variable river channel conditions. The team designed rounded pier configurations and skewed pier alignments to optimize channel and floodway performance.

During construction of the bridge deck, contractors ran four concrete pumps simultaneously to limit the number of joints in the structure. The team installed a textured, high-performance bare concrete surface on the deck's 5 percent vertical grade.

The engineers also identified a deer wintering habitat in the vicinity. To decrease the likelihood of animal incursions, the team designed two other bridges and a culvert near the middle of the highway to allow deer and other woodland creatures to pass under the structure. That strategy, which required building longer structures than otherwise necessary, also made the stream banks more hospitable to amphibian life.

Crews also used onsite natural resources whenever possible. They crushed bedrock from a 2,000-ft.-long, 70-ft. high-excavation and used it for the road sub-base, stone fill, and underdrain stone.

All heavy equipment, along with steel and cement deliveries, came onto the site from either end of the project, where the bypass connects to highways. The contractors established well-defined heavy vehicle routes outside of populated areas to minimize traffic congestion and damage to streets. The strategy avoided the need for heavy equipment and deliveries to maneuver through tight spaces on local roads and on covered bridges, while also working around weight limits on nearby bridges.

Key Players

Owner: Vermont Agency of Transportation; New York State Department of Transportation

Engineer: Clough Harbour & Associates

Contractor: Kubricky Construction

Surveyor: Vermont Survey & Engineering

Steel Contractor: D.A. Collins Construction

Steel Fabricator: High Steel Structures

Concrete Contractor: William E. Dailey

Electrical Contractor: CEA South