This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Sorry, folks. Retired motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel isn't planning a comeback on Salt Lake County's east bench - even though it might look that way.
The Utah Department of Transportation has erected what looks like a bridge to nowhere along the eastern belt of Interstate 215 near 4500 South.
But this 1,500-ton roadway - stretching skyward like a stuntman's springboard - really is headed somewhere. And soon.
UDOT plans to span the east-side freeway in a single weekend this month, relying on the Dutch-owned heavy-lifting company Mammoet to steer a 172-foot bridge from the roadside to the 4500 South overpass, where it will replace the existing bridge.
Unlike highway crossings of the past, this one caused few traffic tangles during construction - well, except for some spectator slowing along I-215. That tempted project boss Bud Schumway to post a sign advertising the arrival of a jet-fighter ramp or a freeway-side Wal-Mart.
The difference? Contractors built this bridge beside the road, instead of sharing the highway with commuters.
So even though the bridge still took nine months to build, it was nine months without intermittent lane closures and a complete shutdown of the 4500 South crossing for what could have been up to five months.
"We are out of everyone's way," said Jim McMinimee, UDOT's director of project development - "until the last moment."
The bridge is UDOT's latest innovation - an example of the unconventional engineering that has come to distinguish the state nationally, say industry experts.
The department has previously experimented with Lego-like bridges over I-215, a technology in which prefabricated panels are poured in a factory setting and assembled on site. Engineers now are contemplating another bridge - this one on rollers - that contractors can construct beside a road and roll into place.
"They are up there with the innovators," said Peter T. Martin, an associate professor of civil engineering and director of the traffic lab at the University of Utah. "UDOT may not always be the first worldwide to implement a radical innovation, but they are likely to rank in the top three."
Federal Highway Administration spokeswoman Nancy Singer echoed those remarks, characterizing Utah in a statement as a "leader in highway innovation."
Martin, who has spent 14 years working with the department, said the shift in UDOT's status quo appeared in the late 1990s under the leadership of then-Executive Director Tom Warne.
Instead of relying on the traditional design-then-build approach to highway construction, Warne lumped the two together to complete a $1.59 billion overhaul of Interstate 15 in fewer than five years - instead of the usual 10 years.
Warne's successor, John Njord, appears to have continued that tradition with the redesign of the 3500 South intersection on Bangerter Highway - the left-turn lanes now flow to the far left side of the road before reaching the intersection - and the testing of new bridge-building techniques.
Both men have served on the national Transportation Research Board's executive committee - Njord as chairman, Warne as vice chairman. And both have served as president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
"They're young, they're aggressive, they're energetic," Martin said of the present and former UDOT chiefs. "They are pushing ahead."
UDOT will roll out its newest bridge by remote control late this month, lifting the old bridge off its supports and driving a new one into place.
The project's price tag: $7.8 million - about $800,000 more than a traditional bridge would have cost.
UDOT officials defend the extra expense, saying the cost of commuter delays in wasted work hours and extra gasoline consumption would add $4 million in unseen social costs to a typical crossing - an estimate calculated by the U.'s traffic lab.
In that sense, the project "more than pays for itself," McMinimee said.
Sure, construction is a headache. But it's nothing like the migraine of normal bridge-building, UDOT officials say.
"We are taking construction delays from months," McMinimee said, "to days."