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Proven solution becomes a Labrador staple.
In the early 1990's, the 500 km road trip from Happy Valley Goose Bay on Labrador's east coast to Labrador City in Western Labrador would take you anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. You would encounter steep grades, high winds, and in the spring, many parts of this road were washed out. The road was never designed to handle heavy traffic and the stream crossings were never designed to handle the proper flows. Consequently, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador was investing in highway improvement and decided to upgrade this road, route 500.
Crossing was known for its flooding problems.
By 1998, the upgrading of the highway was almost complete with the last contract being awarded to SM Construction of Stephenville Crossing, NL. The contract required that the newly-designed highway had to cross Goose Brook, known for heavy spring flooding. Paul Whittle, P.Eng, the Department of Transportation's design engineer, specified a 31 PA 22-21 Bolt-A-Plate® Pipe Arch with a concrete headwall and welded wire wing walls for this crossing.
Walls helped reduce size and cost of arch structure.
Barry Roberts, AIL's Regional Manager, knowing that the Bolt-A-Plate® Pipe Arch with MSE Structural Walls was the right application for the job, approached Paul Pederson of SM Construction and identified the cost savings of backfilling the pipe arch while building the wire walls at the same time. The MSE Structural Wall was also beneficial to the DOT since this retaining wall helped reduce the overall required length of the structure while preventing erosion of the material on the sides of the structure from heavy spring flooding during.
Ease of installation lead to future projects.
Dave Kelly of Mike Kelly & Sons was the onsite foreman supervised the installation of the Bolt-A-Plate® Arch and assembly of the MSE Structural Walls while backfilling the structure. As this was Dave's first experience with MSE Structural Walls, he was very impressed with the ease of installation and has since constructed numerous Bolt-A-Plate® and MSE Structural Wall combinations in Newfoundland and Labrador.
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