Lakeside Bridge

Ames Construction built a new bridge on the Great Salt Lake Causeway that reestablished bi-directional water flow between the two arms of the lake.

When originally constructed in 1959, the bridge featured two culverts large enough for fresh water and small boats to pass between the North and South arms of the lake. However, by 2011, the causeway had sunk more than 15 feet, rendering the culverts ineffective.

The new, 180-foot-long, six-span precast box girder bridge was constructed in two phases. In Phase 1, crews built the first half of the bridge and shifted the existing railroad tracks to a temporary shoofly. In Phase 2, crews built the second half of the bridge and then shifted tracks to their final position.

Large armoring stone control berms were constructed on the north side of the bridge to control flows through the bridgeway, and channels were excavated underwater on both sides of the bridge.

While drilling steel casings into the causeway, crews encountered large amounts of metal and wood along the north side from railcars that had been buried during a major flood event in the 1980s to prevent the causeway from washing away. Ames crews drilled through the railcars to finish the pile driving operations, then excavated under the bridge to demolish and remove the boxcars.

The causeway was breached in early December 2016, reuniting the two sides of the lake.