Building the Future in Alaska: The Juneau Creek Bridge
The Cooper Landing Bypass aims to construct ten miles of the Sterling Highway on the Kenai Peninsula, just over 100 miles south of Anchorage, Alaska. Central to this project is the Juneau Creek Bridge, which will span nearly 930 feet across a remote, steep canyon, with a pylon height of 285 feet. When completed, it will be the longest fully erected and launched bridge in the nation.
Malcolm was subcontracted by the joint venture of Quality Asphalt Paving (QAP) and Traylor Bros, Inc to complete the foundations for this project. Malcolm’s scope included large-diameter drilled shafts for the bridge piers and micropiles to support access for the piers along the edge of the canyon. Malcolm utilized one of our largest drill rigs (the Bauer BG50) and several large-diameter oscillators to install the permanent casings and to drill the required hard rock sockets for the main bridge piers and abutments.
The pier shafts consisted of 10-foot permanently cased shafts, drilled to depths of up to 76 feet, with rock sockets reaching up to 41 feet deep. Rock compressive strengths were as high as 20,000 psi in some locations. To ensure a safe working platform for the piers near the canyon edge, 36 micropiles were installed across three of the four pier locations. All micropiles were installed using a Klemm-style drill rig.
