Carolina TEA performed a Value Engineering (VE) design for Palmetto Infrastructure, Inc to redesign two pedestrian bridges for the City of Greenville, SC. The bridge over Haywood Road consists of a 116’ pedestrian prefabricated truss with 7 approach spans @ 70’ concrete cored slabs. The bridge over Laurens Road consists of a 160’ pedestrian prefabricated truss with 4 approach spans @ 70’ concrete cored slabs. Construction costs for the original design (by others) were more than double the City’s $5 million budget for the project. Carolina TEA’s redesign lengthened the bridges and saved over $5 million in construction costs, bringing the project within the City’s budget.

Changes to the project included:

• Revised the stainless-steel wire rope railing to a standard SCDOT 2-bar bike / pedestrian railing

• Added additional spans to the bridges to eliminate MSE walls, mucking, backfill and all ground improvements

• All interior bents modified from 2-column bents on four piles each to SCDOT Standard 24” Prestressed Concrete Piles on pile points. Reduced the number of piles from eight to three at each bent.

• Shifted the bridge alignment 6 feet (within the existing ROW) to provide better constructability and crane access, which reduced the temporary works required.

• Designed an access road for the contractor to significantly reduce the haul route for the embankment necessary.

Carolina TEA performed the VE at risk to determine if an adequate savings could be found for the project to move forward. Once approved, the 100% design was completed in less than 2 months with an early package of structure drawings to facilitate the fabrication of cored slab spans and prestressed concrete piles.

Carolina TEA won an ACEC-SC Engineering Excellence award for this project in 2024.