Magnolia Avenue Bridge

Southern California

We have just completed drilling the last shaft for the Magnolia Avenue Bridge in Southern California. The project involves separating the current at grade Magnolia Avenue crossing by raising the roadway over an active BNSF railroad line and constructing a 1,400-foot bridge to improve the traffic flow for this very heavily traveled corridor in the County of Riverside.

Malcolm was hired by OHL to install 18 drilled shafts to support the new bridge. Shafts were 13 feet in diameter at an average depth of 92 feet. A total of 7 shafts were tip grouted to optimize the design and compensate for the high axial load demands. All shafts were constructed with the use of polymer drilling fluid due to the high groundwater table. Each shaft was tested using Gamma-Gamma Logging through 14 inspection tubes to verify shaft integrity. All work had to be performed under extremely tight access and therefore required a unique job site setup for such large-diameter shafts. The bridge is expected to be finished in Early 2016.