T.Y. Lin International Wins 2016 Honor Awards for Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People and Port Mann Bridge from American Council of Engineering Companies

T.Y. Lin International (TYLI), a globally recognized full-service infrastructure consulting firm, announced today that two of its major bridge projects, Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People in Portland, Oregon, and the Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia, have received 2016 Engineering Excellence Honor Awards from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). TYLI and the firm’s project partners accepted the awards at ACEC’s Engineering Excellence Awards Gala on April 19, 2016 in Washington, D.C.

TYLI served as the Engineer of Record for the 1,720-foot-long, cable-stayed Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People (Tilikum Crossing). The centerpiece of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project, the signature structure is the nation’s largest transit-only bridge, built to carry only light rail, buses, cyclists, pedestrians, and streetcars, but no private vehicles. TYLI worked in partnership on the fast-track project with the project owner, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), and the Design-Build contractor, Kiewit Infrastructure West Co.

TYLI served as chief design engineer and design manager for the Port Mann Bridge Project. With a 470-meter-long main span, 190-meter-long side spans, and a 52-meter-wide deck, the Port Mann Bridge is the largest main span crossing in Western Canada, the second longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, and one of the world’s widest bridges. TYLI worked closely on the project with Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp), a crown corporation that serves as owner and operator of the project, and the Design-Build contractor, Kiewit-Flatiron Partnership.

“T.Y. Lin International has had the privilege of designing some of the world’s most important and iconic bridges. We are tremendously pleased that the American Council of Engineering Companies has honored our work on Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People and the Port Mann Bridge,” said David Goodyear, P.E., S.E., PEng, TYLI Senior Vice President and Chief Bridge Engineer. “These two projects demonstrate how the application of innovative engineering solutions, along with an unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration between Design-Build teams and their respective project owners, can solve project challenges and advance the bridge design industry.”

About Tilikum Crossing, Bridge of the People:

Located in Portland, Oregon, and the nation’s largest transit-only bridge, Tilikum Crossing is the first major bridge in the United States dedicated to progressive, alternative solutions to meet urban transportation needs. TYLI was charged with satisfying special transit design, seismic design, and aesthetic design requirements established by TriMet for this project, including the form of the bridge, the towers, and the stay-cables. To control such unique design conditions, the firm designed the bridge as a hybrid between a traditional cable-stayed layout and an extradosed bridge. The visually striking structure features two 180-foot-tall stay-cable towers and two landside piers. Taken together with the flatter rise of the cables, the modern profile of Tilikum Crossing reflects the slopes of the Cascade Mountains, which provide the visual backdrop for the bridge when looking toward the triangular form of Mount Hood.

TYLI engineers also introduced numerous value engineering concepts to reduce project costs. These included optimizing the foundation system by reducing the number and size of drilled shafts, and providing a superior, cost-effective, alternative seismic design solution that removed the need to stabilize the soil or handle hazardous materials on the west approach. In addition, Tilikum Crossing had an aggressive project schedule that called for work to begin in the river only five months after notice-to-proceed. Along with meeting that deadline, the Design-Build team successfully met TriMet’s request to accelerate the project schedule by six weeks to allow the rail systems contractor to begin work earlier than contracted.

Tilikum Crossing is the first cable-stayed bridge in Portland, and opened on time and under budget on September 12, 2015. ACEC Oregon honored Tri-Met and the Kiewit-TYLI Team with the 2016 Engineering Excellence Project of the Year Award and the People’s Choice Award for the project.

About the Port Mann Bridge:

The Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the centerpiece of the Port Mann Bridge/Highway 1 Improvement Project (PMH1), the largest transportation infrastructure project in the history of the Canadian province to address escalating traffic congestion throughout Greater Vancouver. The bridge project includes the 850-meter-long crossing over the Fraser River, a 350-meter-long segmental box girder south approach in Surrey, and an 820-meter-long segmental box girder north approach in Coquitlam. Carrying 10 vehicle lanes (five lanes in each direction) and a barrier-separated bicycle-pedestrian path, the Port Mann Bridge now reduces drive time for its users by as much as 50%.

TYLI’s innovative design for the Port Mann Bridge enabled a new 10-lane span within the right-of-way allowed for the five-lane twinned bridge envisioned in TI Corp’s reference documents. The bridge also features a clean, dramatic profile, with two 163-meter-high single mast concrete towers and a three-span superstructure that is a composition of two separate, five-lane deck structures separated by a median where the towers are located. Each deck structure has two planes of stay cables that are supported off of a single central pylon.

Because the lifeline bridge is essential to the region’s emergency response capability and economic recovery after a seismic event, the TYLI team developed a state-of-the-art nonlinear soil-structure interaction analysis for earthquake loads that permitted a detail assessment of bridge response to earthquakes. The Port Mann Bridge Project was also constructed in two phases to mitigate traffic impacts and allow users to experience the benefits of the bridge as quickly as possible. Phase One opened eight traffic lanes in December 2012, a full year earlier than planned. Phase Two opened the final two lanes and marked the official completion of the PMH1 project on August 31, 2015.

The Port Mann Bridge won the 2016 Engineering Excellence Platinum Award from ACEC Washington, capturing the year’s top honor for TI Corp and the Kiewit-Flatiron Partnership-TYLI Team.

About the American Council of Engineering Companies:

The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is the business association of America’s engineering industry, representing more than 5,000 independent engineering firms and more than 500,000 professionals throughout the U.S. engaged in the development of America’s transportation, water and energy infrastructure, along with environmental, industrial and other public and private facilities. Founded in 1909, ACEC is a national federation of 51 state and regional organizations.