2024 #CCEAwards Showcase: Highway 5 Reinstatement

Photo courtesy Kiewit.

Category: Transportation

Award of Excellence Winner: Kiewit

In response to severe damage caused by an ‘atmospheric river’ event in southern British Columbia, the province’s ministry of transportation and infrastructure (MoTI) launched a highway reinstatement program. Through an alliance contract model—a collaborative approach sharing risks and incentives, which had never previously been used on a transportation project in B.C.—the project team developed an innovative design process that allowed construction to begin and complete two months ahead of an aggressive baseline schedule.

The project involved highway reconstruction and the design and construction of eight bridge structures to accommodate a 200-year return period and enhance resilience to climate change.

Expediting deliverables

In November 2021, an atmospheric river—i.e. a long, narrow band of intense precipitation—caused significant damage to B.C. highways. MoTI launched a provincial highway reinstatement program through the Coquihalla Alliance Team, comprising MoTI itself, Kiewit as designer and the KEA5 Partnership of both Kiewit and Emil Anderson Construction as constructor.

The project involved constructing six new permanent bridge crossings, two temporary bridges and 4.5 km of highway. To expedite project deliverables, the team established discipline-specific task forces comprising design, construction, estimating, procurement and MoTI staff. They were able to streamline the review process, accelerate the release of designs for construction, engage key vendors early to incorporate readily available materials into the designs and avoid long lead times.

Custom riprap gradations were developed, which reduced the maximum rock size within each class, simplified transportation and placement, lowered costs and shortened the schedule. The riprap revetments used self-launching aprons to reduce excavation depth, allow construction to occur offset from the river, minimize ecological impacts, limit dewatering needs during construction and mitigate future flooding.

Traffic control planning was complicated by simultaneous and overlapping projects along the corridor. Extreme snowfalls affected traffic control equipment selection and necessitated co-ordination with the maintenance contractor.

Nevertheless, continuous traffic flow was maintained during construction through staging schemes that maximized the workspace in the narrow corridor while minimizing disruptions. These included the two temporary and one of the permanent bridges.

Jessica Bridge was damaged by the atmospheric river. Photo courtesy Kiewit.

The temporary Jessica Bridge was constructed between two permanent bridge alignments to provide north and southbound detours. The design of the approaches minimized wasteful construction and limited impacts on the alignments.

The modular temporary Bottletop Bridge was erected parallel to the existing highway alignments to avoid interfering with ongoing construction activities for the permanent bridges.

The permanent Juliet Bridge was built in the median between two existing bridge alignments, capitalizing on their lateral separation to provide a detour while the remaining existing bridge was demolished. This eliminated the need for temporary structures to maintain four lanes of traffic, while also facilitating the construction of a new bridge on the original alignment.

Ahead of schedule

MoTI’s ambitious schedule targeted the reinstatement of four traffic lanes before the Christmas holidays, just seven months after the contract was awarded in May 2022, and the completion of all highway reconstruction by December 2023.

At the time of award, given to early-involvement collaborative model, there was no reference design concept, design basis, definition of project requirements, stakeholder consultation, construction contract, governance plans or other foundational elements traditionally established before projects are awarded for construction. The owner, contractor, designer and local Indigenous groups collaborated extensively to develop these elements in parallel with the work’s execution.

In December 2022, all design was complete and the aforementioned bridges (two temporary, one permanent) were constructed, restoring four lanes between Hope and Merritt, B.C.

In October 2023, two months ahead of schedule, all bridge work was complete, including the construction of six permanent bridges, the construction and removal of two temporary bridges and the demolition of six damaged bridges.

Jessica Bridge was repaired. Photo courtesy Kiewit.

Achieving goals

The alliance team also set goals for community participation and local input, which led to such economic and social benefits as:

• procuring more than $27.8 million worth of locally sourced material and contracts, including those with Indigenous businesses and partners.
• incorporating Indigenous communities’ input for improving creek channels with fish habitat features and wildlife crossings with additional plants to help restore the area to its natural conditions.
• planting approximately 4,500 native plants at the bridge locations to help return the environment to its natural landscape, provide habitat for wildlife, encourage the use of the bridges as wildlife underpasses and enhance fish habitat through shoreline shading.
• more than 28,777 hours of labour from local and Indigenous workers.

Kiewit also incorporated MoTI’s goals for climate change resiliency into the designs. Replacement bridges were longer than the original structures, supporting MoTI’s ‘build back better’ initiative for resilient flood planning. These increased bridge lengths accommodate 200-year return period river flows, allowing for wider waterway openings that better match both upstream and downstream river geometry.

The original bridges reduced the river width through openings, altering erosion and deposition rates, which could lead to migration of the river, avulsions and landslides. Matching the river’s geometry allows for more natural design through the opening, with a low-flow channel to improve the aquatic ecosystem and an overbank to convey larger floods.

The riprap was set back and buried to allow for plantings and wildlife passage along the waterway while protecting the bridge structure in extreme flood conditions. The revetments were designed to withstand maximum scour depths and water levels that could result from increased peak flows, due to climate change, and the riprap was sized to provide stable protection against velocities and turbulence associated with these high-flow events.

Another example of the ‘build back better’ approach was the use of corrosion-resistant stainless-steel reinforcement in the superstructures to improve service life and reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.

With the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and, consequently, emergency projects across the country, the success of the Highway 5 reinstatement demonstrates how the alliance delivery model can successfully respond to unexpected needs in the transportation sector. The collaborative model was key to completing the entire project scope ahead of schedule (specifically, within 17 months) and achieving goals that conventional design-build delivery could not.

Highway 5 Reinstatement, Hope to Merritt, B.C.

Award-winning firms (prime consultant and lead designer): Kiewit, Burnaby, B.C. (Chris Scollard, P.Eng.; Victor Wang, P.Eng.; Jack Tarrell, P.Eng.; Jonathan Ho, P.Eng.; Gurpreet Bala, P.Eng.; Helen Chin, P.Eng.; Mindy Steckmest, P.E.).

Owner: BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Other key players: Peter Kiewit Sons, Emil Anderson Construction (contractor), Basis Engineering (design subcontractor), Rock Solid Industries, Nucor Rebar Fabrication (division of Nucor Steel, aka Harris Rebar).