Pacific Avenue Overcrossing Wins Another Award

The Pacific Avenue Overcrossing, a bridge located in the heart of downtown Everett, Washington, was recognized with another award in 2003 from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Washington (CECW) for the best design. This bridge previously had won the 2002 1st place PCI National award, chosen over 148 other entries in the category for bridges with spans of 65-130 feet.
MACTEC`s Bellevue office prepared the construction documents for the bridge and provided engineering support during its construction. The client, Sound Transit, has built a major 5-story transit hub in the close vicinity of this bridge.

The five-lane Pacific Avenue Overcrossing is a $12 million project that includes a ramp for traffic between Pacific Avenue and the new transportation hub, Everett Station. Pacific Avenue is adjacent to Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF)’s mainline through downtown Everett. The new transportation hub services many types of "traffic friendly" transportation modes designed to improve access to I-5, eliminate significant traffic delays, increase safety and traffic flow.

The overcrossing consists of a 750-foot long, 78-foot-wide, five-lane main span that crosses the rail line and a 200-foot long, 64-foot wide, four-lane side ramp that provides access to surface streets feeding the multi-modal station. The bridge’s superstructure is composed of precast prestressed tub girders with cast-in-place concrete deck and its substructure is composed of concrete column/shaft bents. The structure is post-tensioned for live loads for deflection control and maintenance. Some of the interesting features of the bridge are; a transversely post-tensioned cantilevered bent that carries two traffic lanes, a continuous end-to-end post-tensioning scheme and seismic design considerations of the interface between the ramp and the main bridge. Sidewalks and at-grade frontage roads were constructed to maintain pedestrian and vehicle access to local businesses and surface streets.

As the prime engineering consultant for the project, MACTEC provided a Type, Size and Location (TS&L) report, plans, specifications & estimates (PS&E), and construction management of the downtown bridge structure. This involved coordination and permitting from BNSF, public involvement, right-of-way acquisition, design of the arterial approach roads, grade separation design, storm water drainage design to connect with the existing storm drainage system, traffic signal and illumination design, design of parking facilities and incorporation of local artists’ work.