MADISON, WI /Oneida Engineering Solutions (OES) and Kraemer North America have been honored with a 2021 Outstanding Highway Construction Award for Excellence in Large Structures from the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the rehabilitation of the STH 23 Wisconsin River Bridge in Sauk County, WI. Congratulations to Terry Weiss, OES Project Engineer, Rebecca Frank, OES Inspector, and the OES team!

This 7-span, 990-foot steel girder bridge project includes a new deck, bearings and bridge painting.

Located adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center, the bridge is in a popular tourism and recreation area for canoes, kayaks, and swimming. To ensure a safe river bottom free from construction debris, sonar scanning and a dive team verified a complete cleanup.

Because of the river’s high and low water variances, Kraemer NA accessed all work from the top and didn’t use a causeway or barges. They engineered a different deck pour sequence approved by WisDOT Bureau of Structures, requiring girder tie downs at the abutments, allowing them to work from the top with a linear pour sequence. Because of the tight schedule to reopen to traffic, decking needed to be completed throughout the winter. Kraemer NA worked continuously through snow and cold to stay on schedule.

After the bridge deck was completed, the contractor used temporary signals to open the bridge to one-way traffic during the painting of the steel girders. To minimize traffic congestion, the contractor initially was to paint a quarter of the bridge at a time. However, in a partnership between WisDOT, OES, and Kraemer NA, traffic staging was modified to drastically reduce the completion date. With close traffic que monitoring, after the girder’s south sections were sand blasted and prime coated, the single lane was extended to the length of the bridge. This allowed the contractor to have multiple operations and crews working on the underside of the entire bridge. The staging changes resulted in the work being completed 5.5 weeks ahead of schedule, reducing long-term traffic impacts and engineering costs.