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WACO WHOA! 4 Year Hwy6 Twin Bridges Replacement Over Lake Waco

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Cycledelic Relic

Cycledelic Relic

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This was jus waiting to happen...the bridges were built over 50 years ago. With big truck traffic & oversize loads contributing to their decay.
TxDOT sez 4 years to finish replacing both bridges.....so expect at least 5.

All traffic will be routed to 1 bridge..probably the southbound side.

Speegleville Rd & China Spring FM1637 will undoubtedly bear the brunt of traffic increases. At least China Spring was 4 laned from FM185 into Waco...but the 185 bridge is still 2 lanes. Speegleville to US84 nope..still 2 lanes with plenty of mornin & evenin traffic

The next project should be the long delayed 4 lane overpass at Tx6 & FM185. Traffic there backs up mornin & evenin....even mid afternoon a bit.

OH...& justa reminder...
Tomorro is April 1st...not today
 
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The next part of the 35 project from 12th street to SH 6 will be kicking off soon as well.
 
I don't get out that way as much as I used to. Fortunately I don't commute over the Twin Bridges anymore, either. The bridges definitely need it, though. A lot of bridges statewide are in dire need of repairs. I've worked for the state for nearly 13 years now and I don't want to speak on behalf, but there are a lot of them out there needing work.
 
Hope it's not the same contractor we have here in BCS that is know to never finish a job, yet the city keeps hiring them. They just pick day and stop working. They'll leave equipment sitting for months and sometimes years, barrels blocking lanes for months, dirt piles all over the place.
 
TxDOT is using Orion Construction LLC as contractor on the bridges.

A lil side note.....when finished the widened 3 lane bridges will be close enuf together to look like one wide bridge. What will we call them then?
 
BigTyler said:
I don't get out that way as much as I used to. Fortunately I don't commute over the Twin Bridges anymore, either. The bridges definitely need it, though. A lot of bridges statewide are in dire need of repairs. I've worked for the state for nearly 13 years now and I don't want to speak on behalf, but there are a lot of them out there needing work.
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You don't know just how bing of a statement you just made. I just retired from TxDot.

For the last two yrs that I know of (didn't pay attention before) The states hwy dept's bridge crew (FOR THE WHOLE STATE) consists of 4 people. One old timer with all of the experience, hates all of the young guys so he doesn't talk to them. They heads of the agency decided instead of employing actual engineers to inspect and do repairs, we'll let the road maintenance people do it. You know, the laborer's that DON'T know anything about structural integrity.

So just my section had over 300 bridges, 1000+ lane miles of road way to maintain, and then the sign and herbicide work. I did the equipment and facilities maintenance.
There was no time, no instructions, no training. We were told to inspect, repair best we could, take pictures of said repair and mark it complete. There are no post inspections done by the bridge crew to insure proper repairs. And let me tell you. They are NOT! In Texas, most bridges are decades behind in inspections and maintenance.

I do need to make an edit, there's only 4 bridge crew members in the Corpus Christi District, not the whole state.
 
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dualsportvet said:
You don't know just how bing of a statement you just made. I just retired from TxDot.

For the last two yrs that I know of (didn't pay attention before) The states hwy dept's bridge crew (FOR THE WHOLE STATE) consists of 4 people. One old timer with all of the experience, hates all of the young guys so he doesn't talk to them. They heads of the agency decided instead of employing actual engineers to inspect and do repairs, we'll let the road maintenance people do it. You know, the laborer's that DON'T know anything about structural integrity.

So just my section had over 300 bridges, 1000+ lane miles of road way to maintain, and then the sign and herbicide work. I did the equipment and facilities maintenance.
There was no time, no instructions, no training. We were told to inspect, repair best we could, take pictures of said repair and mark it complete. There are no post inspections done by the bridge crew to insure proper repairs. And let me tell you. They are NOT! In Texas, most bridges are decades behind in inspections and maintenance.
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I believe it. I'm still hesitant to say too much, lol, but I spent 2 years as a crew chief in a different county around the time the bridge follow up action reports started coming out, and we had our fair share.
 
When my kids were little we had a Chevy G20 van. It was always fun trying to match your speed to get the maximum oscillations going over the bridges! You could get a big heavy van jumping up and down pretty good at the right speed!

I haven't been over those bridges in 10 years or more.
 
I worked on road building machinery for years , chip seal is the baby teeth in highway contractor life , its where everybody starts out , their first job is because all the machinery can be rented . And the state provides the rock , The only thing they need is warm bodies . But chip seal only works when everything is perfect , the oil has to be at the exact proper tempeture to make the rock stick , the oil has to be sprayed at exactly the proper level or it bleeds through , the rock has to go down exactly right or its wasted , and that almost never happens with a bunch of people that have no idea what they are doing . And usually the highway dept inspector has little experience too . Everything about the job is wrong . What was really cool was petromat , but it worked , I was on one of the first jobs it was used on in Texas in 1981 and parts of that road are still good 45 years latter . Old highway 288 from arcola to angleton , parts of it are the 1981 pavement resurface job .
 
Cycledelic Relic said:
Same with the chip seal solution to "extend" the useful life of road pavement. Ride or drive down FM185 from Tx6 to Crawford & then tell me it works.
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It does work, but they didn't apply it correctly on that road. Inspector must have been snoozing.
 
Ride or drive down FM185 from Tx6 to Crawford & then tell me it work

it works well at keeping the windshield shops in business. I'm actually surprised with all the developments and inventions through time, roads are still built like they were in the 40's.
 
One of the biggest problems with seal coat is similar to what was commented above, the experienced guys are all retired now and the knowledge was never passed down. I can remember maybe 3 instances about 12 years ago of us actually performing the operation ourselves in house. Most of it is contracted out, but even then, a large amount of inspectors were never properly trained, either.
 
Back on the bridges as in Twin Bridges....update: the first week of the project is only seeing closure of the access roads to the U turn under bridges. Hwy traffic unaffected....as of now.
....well..cept for all the rock/gravel haulers heddn to the pit northwest of the bridges & south of hwy 6. They normally exit at the Park & use the U turn. But now hafta go to Speeglevile Rd exit to U turn using overpass to south access road. There is already a good amount of traffic exiting at Speegleville...especially evenings...so this jus adds on.
 
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dualsportvet said:
You don't know just how bing of a statement you just made. I just retired from TxDot.

For the last two yrs that I know of (didn't pay attention before) The states hwy dept's bridge crew (FOR THE WHOLE STATE) consists of 4 people. One old timer with all of the experience, hates all of the young guys so he doesn't talk to them. They heads of the agency decided instead of employing actual engineers to inspect and do repairs, we'll let the road maintenance people do it. You know, the laborer's that DON'T know anything about structural integrity.

So just my section had over 300 bridges, 1000+ lane miles of road way to maintain, and then the sign and herbicide work. I did the equipment and facilities maintenance.
There was no time, no instructions, no training. We were told to inspect, repair best we could, take pictures of said repair and mark it complete. There are no post inspections done by the bridge crew to insure proper repairs. And let me tell you. They are NOT! In Texas, most bridges are decades behind in inspections and maintenance.
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Wow, that explains things pretty well. Thank for all your service.
 
Cycledelic Relic said:
I sincerely hope you didnt have anything to do with "chip seal"
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So I have to say, that was one of the first things I gripped about! There's no reason for chip to be flying all over the place. You let it sit for a bit then sweep it. There were a LOT of things I disagreed with. I ended up removing the crew chief over it. I wasn't able to fix it all, but I was able to correct a lot of issues there.
 
One plus with chip seal , there is no loss of traction on a wet road if its done right . When not done right there is nothing worse .
 
One thing that I don't think comes up anymore or is in any part of the plans for road work, is the word..SMOOTH. Seriously, how long has it been since you've seen road work turn out smooth when it's done. On a small trip this weekend, I went through several spots that look as tho they have just been redone. It was horrible. The job orders must have been filled with the words dried corn cob instead of smooth. Are the workers even told the word smooth when they are hired anymore? Do they even know how to spell it?
 
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