HomeMy WebLinkAboutLansing Bridge Inspection - Executive Summary 2017City of Lansing 2017
Bridge Inspection Report
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Federal and State Requirement
Inspection of bridges is required for all structures on the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) by the Federal
Government through the Code of Federal Regulations 23 CFR Part 650 entitled the National Bridge
Inspection Standards (NBIS). NBIS requires that inspection be performed by a qualified bridge inspector.
NBIS establishes maximum bridge inspection frequencies for each type of bridge safety inspection.
Routine inspections must occur at regular intervals that do not exceed 24 months. The regulations also
require each state to establish criteria for reduced inspection frequencies through the consideration of
factors such as age, traffic characteristics, and condition state. The NBIS does not apply to tunnels,
bridges that carry only pedestrians, railroad tracks, pipelines, or other types of non-highway
passageways. However, MDOT requires that all structures that are over moving traffic be inspected to
the same guidelines as NBIS.
For bridges over waterways there are additional requirements based on scour concerns, including scour
action plans, taking waterway cross sections, and underwater inspections. Scour action plans are
required for all bridges that are deemed scour critical. To determine if a bridge is not scour critical, a
scour analysis is required. There are two levels of scour analysis. A Level One analysis is the first step
and it consists of gathering information that covers stream characteristics, land use, stream stability,
lateral stability, vertical stream stability, and channel response to change. If the results of a Level One
analysis do not conclude that a bridge is not scour critical then a Level Two analysis is required. A Level
Two scour analysis is an analytical process to define stream stability and scour problems that
incorporates flood history, hydraulic conditions, geotechnical evaluation, watershed sediment yield,
incipient motion analysis, armoring potential, rating curve shifts, and scour conditions.
For all bridges that are scour critical, a scour action plan needs to be created. These action plans need
to be updated each time a routine inspection is completed at a minimum, as well as after each major
storm event. Waterway cross sections frequency is determined based on MDOT’s Guidelines for Bridge
Inspection Frequencies. The City of Lansing’s bridges that are coded as scour critical have not had any
observed scour, so the cross section frequency is 48 months.
Underwater inspections are performed where the water depth exceeds 10 feet where normal probing is
not sufficient to detect any signs of scour. All bridges where the water depth meets these requirements
require an underwater inspection regardless if the bridge is scour critical or not. The City has six bridges
that require underwater inspections. All six bridges have a 60 month inspection frequency.
Bridge load ratings need to be updated any time work has been done to a structure that has changed
the loading to the bridge, or the condition of the bridge has dropped to a level where the load carrying
member capacities have been reduced.
City of Lansing 2017
Bridge Inspection Report
2. Bridge Inspection Frequency
This year’s routine inspections were completed for all of the City’s bridges. All of the City’s bridges are
on a 24 month inspection cycle, except where noted otherwise below:
1 - Woodgate Walkover over Miller Road
2 - Wexford Road Walkover over Jolly Road
3 - Averill Walkover over West Holmes Road
4 - Ray Street Walkover over East Mount Hope Avenue
5 - Harding Avenue Walkover over East Mount Hope Avenue
6 - Holmes Street Walkover over East Kalamazoo Street
7 - Massachusetts Avenue Walkover over East Grand River Avenue
8 - Newark Street Walkover over Pleasant Grove Road
9 - Pleasant View School Walkover over Pleasant Grove Road
10 - Willow Street Walkover over North Martin Luther King Jr.
11 - Kendon Walkover over Pennsylvania Avenue
12 - Potter Park River Trail over Pennsylvania Avenue
13 - Harley Franks School Walkover over Wise Road
14 – N/A
15 - Grand Trunk Railroad over Pennsylvania Avenue
16 - Jolly Road over Sycamore Creek
17 - Cavanaugh Road over Sycamore Creek
18 - Mount Hope Avenue over Sycamore Creek
19 - Elm Avenue over the Grand River
20 - East Elm Street over the Red Cedar River (12 month inspection cycle)
21 - Kalamazoo Street over the Grand River
22 - Shiawassee Street over the Grand River
23 - East Grand River Avenue over the Grand River
24 - North Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard over the Grand River
25 - North Grand River Avenue over the Grand River
26 - South Washington Avenue over the Grand River
27 - Pennsylvania Avenue over Norfolk Southern Railroad
28 - Pennsylvania Avenue over the Red Cedar River
29 - Aurelius Road over Sycamore Creek
30 - Aurelius Road over the Red Cedar River
31 - Aurelius Road over Grand Trunk Railroad (12 month inspection cycle)
32 - Beech Street over Red Cedar River
33 - Aurelius Road over Pawlowski Creek Drain (12 month inspection cycle)
34 - N/A
35 - Enterprise Drive over Pawlowski Creek Drain
City of Lansing 2017
Bridge Inspection Report
3. Summary of RFA’s and Work Recommendations
The list of work recommendations can be seen in the Bridge Maintenance Items and Priorities Table.
The following is a summary of the Requests for Action that were submitted this year:
Pennsylvania Avenue over the Red Cedar River – Replace the missing railing on the east side of
the bridge.
4. Underwater Inspection
Underwater inspections were performed in 2013 and 2015. Since the City’s bridges requiring
underwater inspection have a 60 month frequency, no underwater inspections were required this year.
The following bridges will require underwater inspections in 2018:
I. Pennsylvania over Red Cedar
II. Aurelius over Red Cedar
The following bridges will require underwater inspections in 2020:
I. Elm Avenue over Grand River
II. East Elm Street over Red Cedar River
III. Kalamazoo Street over the Grand River
IV. Shiawassee Street over Grand River
5. Scour Criticality, Channel Cross-Sections and Scour Action Plans
Channel cross-sections are taken and plotted for the bridges that are over water and are currently
considered scour critical. The cross-sections are taken on both the upstream and downstream faces of
the bridge. The purpose of the cross-sections are to determine if the channel is changing over time
which could provide an indication of ongoing scour. Small variations in the channel cross-sections are to
be expected due to difficulties in taking elevations underwater and since the measurements are not
taken in the exact same locations each time. Since the channels appear stable without notable change,
the channel cross-sections are on a four-year cycle. Since channel cross-sections were taken for all of
the City’s scour critical bridges in 2015, no channel cross-sections were taken this year.
Due to the presence of scour countermeasures and stable cross-sections, the following bridges have
been removed from the list of scour critical bridges:
I. Jolly Road over Sycamore Creek
II. Cavanaugh Road over Sycamore Creek
III. South Washington Avenue over the Grand River
IV. Aurelius Road over Sycamore Creek
V. Aurelius Road over Pawlowski Creek Drain
VI. Enterprise Drive over Pawlowski Creek Drain
City of Lansing 2017
Bridge Inspection Report
The following bridges remain listed as scour critical and will require channel cross-sections in 2019:
I. Mount Hope Avenue over Sycamore Creek
II. Elm Avenue over the Grand River
III. East Elm Street over the Red Cedar River
IV. Kalamazoo Street over the Grand River
V. North Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard over the Grand River
VI. North Grand River Avenue over the Grand River
VII. Pennsylvania Avenue over the Red Cedar River
VIII. Aurelius Road over the Red Cedar River
6. Load ratings
The following bridges have had work performed on them in 2017 and load ratings have been updated as
part of the design project:
I. Jolly Road over Sycamore Creek
II. Cavanaugh Road over Sycamore Creek
III. Elm Avenue over the Grand River
IV. Aurelius Road over Sycamore Creek
7. Completing the process
After the inspections are complete, the reports are completed on MDOT’s MiBridge website. The results
of the inspection are then reviewed by the City of Lansing to determine which bridges will be submitted
to receive funding under the Michigan Local Agency Bridge Program.
8. Upcoming Inspections
Three bridges will be inspected in October 2018:
I. East Elm Street over Red Cedar River
II. Aurelius over Grand Trunk Railroad
III. Aurelius over Pawlowski Creek
The next full round of biennial inspections will be held in October 2019.