bridge engineering morrison maierle

Toston Structures The Toston Structures consist of a 661-foot-long highway bridge—and an adjacent 350-foot-long railroad bridge—over the Missouri River in Montana between Townsend and Three Forks. The structures have intermediate river piers, steel beams and cross frames, and nearly 7,000 square feet of concrete decks between them. Our services included: Highway design Bridge engineering Survey Natural resources Two Corridors, Two Possibilities The 75-year-old structures were at the end of their design lives. They also had a treacherous curve with no shoulders, and inspections showed cracking in some critical areas. In 2011, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) completed a simulation on the US-287 corridor crossingsRead More →

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bridge competition

Students Participate in Balsa Wood Bridge Contest It may be the lightest and softest member of the hardwood family, but balsa wood (along with roughly 30 students and two teachers from Capital High and Helena High) was the material of the moment at Morrison-Maierle’s first Balsa Wood Bridge Contest. Led by Russ Lay, a bridge engineer in our Helena office, the contest required students to design and construct bridges using only the featherweight balsa wood and glue. The students, some who worked in teams and others who worked individually, created miniature bridges that were tested and ranked based on their strength-to-weight ratio. Having competed inRead More →

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bridge design

MDT MT-81 Bridges The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) hired Morrison-Maierle and Frontier West to replace three bridges along Montana Highway 81 (MT-81) between Fort Benton and Lewistown. The original structures were constructed in 1934 and 1948 and had begun to deteriorate. The two 1934 structures were multiple span timber bridges and the 1948 Judith River bridge was a multiple span steel girder structure with piers in the river. The Judith River Bridge was considered the most significant scour risk in Montana and susceptible to catastrophic failure. The new structures were designed and replaced with one phased concrete box culvert, one phased single span bulb-teeRead More →

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washington transportation civil engineering

Cheney Safe Routes to School The Cheney School District (CSD) and the City of Cheney, Washington, partnered together to improve pedestrian and bicycle facilities for Cheney High School and Betz Elementary School—two neighboring facilities that were experiencing safety issues caused by speeding, sight-distance limitations, and lack of dedicated pedestrian facilities. In 2018, Morrison-Maierle was hired to complete a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) grant application and verified the schools’ safety concerns at that time. The grant was awarded which paid for construction while the design engineering was covered by CSD’s financial contribution to the project. The project upgraded facilities and filled in gaps to createRead More →

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hobnail-tom-trail-bridges-morrison-maierle

Hobnail Tom Trail Bridges Located in the picturesque Lolo National Forest, the Hobnail Tom Trail Bridges provide access to the Scapegoat and Bob Marshall Wilderness areas. This trail connects to the trail system that serves the entire Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (BMWC). It is heavily used for administrative purposes and for recreation by outfitters, guides, hunters, and backpackers. There are many substantial trail bridges in the BMWC. The Hobnail Tom Trail, approximately 27 miles in length, crosses the North Fork of the Blackfoot River with two bridges—Smokes Bridge and the North Fork Bridge. Morrison-Maierle completed bridge inspections on each structure in September 2013. Both bridgesRead More →

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west-laurel-interchange-morrison-maierle

West Laurel Interchange A 2005 summary report from the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) reported a crash cluster on I-90 near the West Laurel Interchange. In five years time, there were 27 vehicle accidents in the westbound lanes and 48 in the eastbound lanes. By far the most crashes occurred in icy conditions as traffic attempted to negotiate the tight curves on the bridges over the Montana Rail Link (MRL) tracks. In 2014, MDT made a commitment to “Vision Zero”—a multi-pronged initiative with the goal of eliminating deaths and injuries on Montana highways. This program focuses on four areas: education, enforcement, engineering, and emergency medicalRead More →

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Kootenai Falls Swinging Bridge

Kootenai Falls Swinging Bridge Hovering 35 feet above the raging rapids of Kootenai River in northwestern Montana, Kootenai Falls Swinging Bridge presents an incredible tourism destination and a major attraction to the Libby and Troy communities. After parking directly off Highway 2, a short trail provides passage to the Swinging Bridge and breathtaking Kootenai Falls. Managed by the US Forest Service, the bridge was originally built in 1937 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, to provide access for firefighters to the north side of the river. After a decade of use, the original structure was swept away by the surging Kootenai River in the spring ofRead More →

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Morrison-Maierle receives three ACEC Engineering Excellence Awards The Montana Chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) recently awarded Morrison-Maierle with three 2019 Engineering Excellence Awards for projects in the transportation, structural systems, and building/technology categories. Design teams from the firm’s offices in Bozeman, Missoula, and Helena accepted the awards for their work on these projects. The firm’s Bert Mooney Airport Terminal project incorporated many cost-saving engineering measures that helped create a new terminal that now meets all security and safety measures while honoring Butte’s rich history with structural and architectural elements throughout the building. Morrison-Maierle worked with Butte-native, Paul Powers, who is theRead More →

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Cabinet Gorge Bridge The bridge over Cabinet Gorge Reservoir—where the reservoir runs deep and the shores are steep—is 4.5 river miles above the Cabinet Gorge hydroelectric dam on the Clark Fork River and provides a vital transportation link for residents needing to access emergency services, schools, and mail delivery. The former load-limited truss bridge was originally built in 1920 in Washington and was moved to Heron in 1952. Already 32-years old, the bridge was a single-lane structure so highly cambered it was impossible to see from one end to the other. Sanders County and the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) knew it was time forRead More →

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Kim Williams Trail Extension Project Morrison-Maierle was hired by the City of Missoula to design the 0.22 mile-long segment of the Kim Williams Trail Extension Project connecting southwest Missoula to East Missoula. The funding source, a Community Transportation Enhancement Program grant, was contingent on fast approaching deadlines which provoked the City of Missoula to seek the completion of the project in very short order. In response to the time constraints, Morrison-Maierle proposed a plan founded on an accelerated design schedule, our technical experience with the trail system, and successful coordination with Montana Rail Link (MRL), Montana Department of Transportation, and local landowners. The Morrison-Maierle designRead More →

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Randy Bomar

Randy Bomar promoted as Morrison-Maierle’s newest Vice President Morrison-Maierle, a Sheridan, Wyoming, firm specializing in engineering, surveying, planning, and science, is pleased to announce that Randy Bomar has been named a vice president. He is currently serving as the Sheridan Operations Manager and is a Senior Engineer in the Transportation Market Group. He and his team at Vista West became part of Morrison-Maierle in 2016. “I am very honored to be named a Vice President of Morrison Maierle,” said Randy after Tuesday’s board meeting. “Working with great people across all of our offices is very rewarding and knowing everyone is working to make the companyRead More →

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Deep Creek Canyon Segments A and B Accelerated Bridge Construction Awards:  2015 America’s Transportation Award – Best Use of Innovation Regional Award; 2015 Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Montana, Structural Systems (including bridges) Category; 2014 APWA Rocky Mountain Chapter Project of the Year Award; High flows during the 2011 spring runoff resulted in significant erosion of the US Highway 12 embankment and damaged bridges crossing Deep Creek. The subsequent flooding required emergency maintenance to prevent structural loss, and triggered a project to replace three bridges in the initial phase of a three-phase construction program. After careful analysis, the Montana Department ofRead More →

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Morrison-Maierle named to “Best Firms To Work For” list for third consecutive year; also named to national ENR ranking For the third consecutive year, Morrison-Maierle has been named as one of the “Best Firms To Work For” by professional services industry leader, The Zweig Group. The Zweig Group measures business success in the architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting industries throughout the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, the firm was also placed on Engineering News Record’s (ENR) 2016 Top 500 list. Since ENR began this ranking in 1965, Morrison-Maierle has been ranked all but six years. Headquartered in Helena, Montana, Morrison-Maierle placed 15th in the multi-discipline categoryRead More →

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