Concrete Pour Starting on the Farnam Street Bridge – Bike Lane Area on the Left and Streetcar Track on the Right
In my earlier Grow Omaha article about the Farnam and Harney Street bridges, I explained the background and need for replacing the Harney Street and Farnam Street bridges over Interstate 480. The new Harney Street bridge has been open since last fall, while the Farnam Street bridge is currently being rebuilt. A major milestone occurred June 1st, when the “deck pour” started. That involves adding the final layer of concrete to the top of the bridge.
The most interesting part of the Farnam Street bridge is its multimodality – besides accommodations for motor vehicles, the bridge will have space for pedestrians, bikes and streetcars. The bridge will include an exclusive bike lane on the south side for the Market-to-Midtown bikeway and a trough for future streetcar tracks.
There will be a normal sidewalk on the north side of the bridge, three traffic lanes (including one lane that will be shared with streetcar vehicles) and the bike lane on the south side. You can see these in the photo above – the far left is the bike lane area and the track space is on the far right.
Similar to Harney Street, the Farnam Street bridge is being built with concrete sections in the right lane that will be removed for future streetcar track when the mainline track construction reaches this section. You will notice these on the bridge when it is done as lines that go from one end of the bridge to other, which will look like concrete measured out for the streetcar rail width.
For this process, concrete is pumped onto the deck using a crane, poured into the rebar sections and then smoothed out. The pour needs to be continuous to avoid weak spots and joints between sections. After pouring, a heavy finishing machine travels across the width of the deck to level the concrete to the exact surface grade required. Specialized rakes are used to create grooves in the wet concrete, ensuring vehicles have proper traction when driving over the bridge.
Be sure to keep updated on the Omaha Streetcar website at omahastreetcar.org, register for our monthly webinars here, or check out previous webinars and other videos here.
Eric Miller is the Streetcar Operations Manager for the City of Omaha. Erik has a 21-year career in the transit industry that includes work in both the private and public sectors and work on planning and implementing bus and rail projects for transit agencies all across the country.