Lancaster Road Project

In winter of 2016, Stark began tree removal on the $2,803,070 project for The Peoria County Highway Department, located west of Bartonville. Construction of the roadway and bridge started in Spring 2017.

Jeremy Livengood, Peoria Area Manager stated “Because of the rapid deterioration of the existing bridge, in Fall of 2015 county engineers had to increase the routine bridge inspections from once every three months to once a month. The bridge was closed to traffic in May 2016 which was approximately two years ahead of Peoria County’s budgeted plan for the project.”

This project involved removing the existing three span bridge, two piers, and two abutments, which will be replaced with a single span steel beam bridge. Phases to date: The bridge has been removed, storm sewer installed, pavement removal completed, seventy-five percent of dirt has been moved, rip rap has been placed, MSE wall started June 23, 2017, and water main work began June 26.

In this particular area, the shale was very high in elevation. When driving pile, the bottom tip elevation was about 20′ shy of what the designers had anticipated so the bridge office had to re-evaluate this prior to installing concrete abutments. On the East abutment we had to pre-core 24″ holes through the shale and fill the holes with bentonite prior to driving pile. It took nine hours to drill seven holes 10′ deep. The new bridge was designed to be longer than the original which took a lot of pre-planning and was our biggest challenge to maintain access for all homeowners to their driveways located directly behind the existing abutment.

Interesting, funny fact: “We had to install a cedar horse fence prior to executing any work due to a commitment the PCHD gave to a nearby homeowner. The homeowner claims there is a ‘Fairy’ tree on the premises and refused to let us disturb it because she thought it would bring bad luck,” stated Jeremy.

Project Team: Kevin Pribble, Scott Rakers, Nate Miller, Jeremy Livengood