PANAMAX-sized ships are one of the ways goods from across the world are transported to consumers in the U.S. It is very important these container ships arrive safely into our ports. Unfortunately, the Bayonne Bridge roadway in Staten Island, N.Y. was not high enough to allow these massive ships to pass underneath, and therefore, the ships couldn’t access the Port of New York.
The project, affectionately known as “Raise the Roadway,” to provide more clearance under the bride started in 2013 with the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority awarding Skanska Koch, Inc./Kiewit Infrastructure Co. (JV) team the project contract, which specified not only raising the bridge but also installing a new, wider roadway with a bike and pedestrian walkway. This project is a massive, $1.29 billion engineering endeavor with several subcontractors and businesses involved. One subcontractor, JP Hogan Coring & Sawing Corp. of Staten Island, N.Y., played an important role on the project. JP Hogan was contracted to perform all of the concrete sawing and drilling to remove and also modify parts of the deck and abutments at the New York and New Jersey anchorages of the Bayonne Bridge.
The majority of the deck work needed to take place at night, which limited working hours. Jack Hogan, operations manager, knew he needed equipment and operators that would consistently perform throughout their schedule. He relied on Husqvarna FS 8400 and FS 7000 flat saws, as well as F810C blades, to cut through the old deck along with a Husqvarna CS 10 wire saw and C770 wire for the larger portions. The bridge at its longest span is 1,675 ft, holding four lanes of traffic and two walkways. JP Hogan cut the walkways first, mostly with transverse cuts every 10 ft. To remove the roadway portion of the deck, longitudinal cuts were made down each of the three lanes and then transverse cuts were made every 10 ft. This totaled approximately 22,074 linear ft of cut reinforced concrete. The blades, wire and machines worked together in sync and ripped through the heavily #9 rebar reinforced deck efficiently enough to keep JP Hogan on schedule.
In addition to the deck, JP Hogan also drilled picking holes used to thread lifting straps through the slab/cut piece so it could be lifted and removed from the site, and wall-sawed the abutments to make room for the new construction to take place. Again, JP Hogan relied on Husqvarna products. They used a WS 360-1500 wall saw and W1410 blades for the abutments in order to make short work of the concrete and remain on schedule
Without the combined efforts of operator and machine, the project would not have been finished in time and would have delayed the progress to “Raise the Roadway.”
