Historic Rockville Bridge Selected for National Award
Lochner is pleased to announce the Historic Rockville Bridge Rehabilitation project was selected as the 2020 Public Works Project of the Year in the Small Cities/Rural Communities Historical Restoration/Preservation category by the American Public Works Association (APWA). Lochner provided design and construction engineering and inspection (CEI) services for the bridge rehabilitation.
Jerry Amundsen, Lochner’s project manager for the design phase, said, “The success of this project is satisfying not only because the bridge is important to transportation history but also because we helped a small town restore a source of community pride. The Rockville Bridge project has a lot of heart, and it’s exciting to see it recognized on a national level.”
Rehabilitation efforts of the Historic Rockville Bridge sought to improve the bridge’s load rating from six tons, too low for emergency and waste removal vehicles, to 25 tons while also preserving as much of the bridge’s original components as possible. Originally constructed in 1924 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, the bridge is the only remaining Parker Through Truss in Utah still open to vehicular traffic and represents an important era of transportation history. The bridge also provides the only access from the Town of Rockville to residences and ranches on the south of the Virgin River.
“The opportunity to preserve and maintain this beloved bridge for future generations in Rockville was empowering to the design team,” commented Brian Byrne, structural lead for the project. “In our effort to strengthen the structure to meet modern needs with minimal impacts to the trusses, we thought it was fitting to install a timber deck as an homage to the structure’s first years of service transporting excited vacationers between Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks.”