Located in Fort McMurray, Alberta, this new vehicle and pedestrian bridge structure provides a key crossing over the Hangingstone River. The cast-in-place posttension concrete pedestrian bridge is supported by an iconic contoured single steel arch.

Due to the arch’s complex geometry, the project team carefully coordinated the fabrication, on-site construction, and connection details using Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to mitigate risk associated with lifting it into place. The team created a digital model of the concrete base and associated steel arch to ensure the concrete cone bases were completely compatible, allowing the arch’s base plate to line up precisely with the steel anchor bolt settings embedded in two bases. 

Strong collaboration with the consultant and steel contractor ensured the final model matched the consultant’s design intent and effectively communicated the complexity of the geometry to all involved in the project. This collaboration reduced the lift time from 20 hours, as initially budgeted in the schedule, to eight hours.