Weather helps bypass work

Thanks to warm November weather, the U.S. 93 Alternative Route project is at full pace without much reason to slow down.

Recent 40- and 50-degree days have allowed the ground to remain soft for excavation, while cooler nights keep the access roads from becoming too sloppy after rain.

“As long as it stays like this, we don’t stop,” said Don Brummel, project manager at LHC, the general contractor for the $33.8 million road project. “The only thing that’s going to slow us down is below zero temperature.”

The first and most notable pieces of the U.S. 93 bypass project are bridge structures that will span Old Reserve Drive and U.S. 2.

“The bridges are critical to opening up the bypass on schedule,” Brummel said. “The bridges are the driver of keeping it all on schedule.”

On Old Reserve Drive, crews are moving 50,000 cubic yards of dirt toward the embankments that will form the ramp up to the bridge. Sletten Construction, which is completing all bridge construction, is also installing sheet piling — long steel beams driven 65 feet into the ground — that will maintain the width of traffic on Old Reserve Drive and prop up the future overpass span.

Brummel said he hopes to have the on-ramp built for the bridge around Christmas. Once piling crews are finished on Old Reserve, they will begin doing the same for the bridge on Four Mile Drive. The actual bridge construction will begin and run through winter once the pilings are completed on either side of Old Reserve.

Over U.S. 2, the bridge will be much bigger.

“This is a monster, to put it mildly,” said Jim Mitchell, engineering project manager for the Montana Department of Transportation.

The four-lane bridge stretching 200 feet over U.S. 2 will have interchange on-ramps, meaning drivers will simply merge onto the bypass without stop signs or signals. The beams supporting the bridge will be 120 feet long, some of the largest beams the state transportation agency has ever laid, Mitchell said.

Crews are moving 150,000 cubic yards of dirt from the Three Mile Drive area to U.S. 2 to build the U.S. 2 bridge embankment.

South of U.S. 2, part of the existing bypass will be widened from two lanes to four. Extra topsoil has been spread over the slopes east of the existing bypass to be used to replant grass and revegetate the area. Mitchell said by late spring, the slopes should be healthy with grass once again.

Mitchell said eventually construction will be moving on five bridges simultaneously, with an expected completion date for November of next year.

Brummel said construction crews have had a few pedestrian problems since beginning construction. After crews down a handful of trees near Two Mile Drive, people began chopping the wood up for personal use. The trees were technically given to the landowner near construction, so LHC posted a “No Trespassing” sign near the timber pile.

Another issue has been people walking their dogs along the construction site. Brummel fears a dog might get loose or a person might be walking the access road when a huge construction vehicle is barreling down the road.

“We’re not trying to be jerks about it,” Brummel said. “But we have had to tell people not to walk their dogs here. It’s hard to stop these big machines.”

Next week, LHC will begin carving out the bypass roadway between U.S. 2 and Two Mile Drive. The bypass route is already stripped in the area between Old Reserve Drive and Four Mile Drive and crews will begin laying layers of subgrade material on the future roadway through the winter.

Brummel said there are currently 80 people working on the bypass project and that number could grow to 200 next summer when more subcontractors get involved.

For more information and updates, visit www.mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/kalispellbypass.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.