Bridge issue delays expressway completion
A flawed retaining wall has delayed completion of the 5.8-mile extension of the King Expressway, the Arkansas Department of Transportation said.
ArDOT told The Sentinel-Record in November the $80.14 million project connecting the Highway 70 east interchange to the junction of highways 5 and 7 was ahead of schedule. McGeorge Contracting was on pace to finish before the August 2022 date projected when construction began in late 2019.
But an error discovered after the retaining wall was built for the Mill Creek Road bridge has upended that timeline, pushing the end of construction into the fall.
“The project delay has been in trying to engineer a suitable solution that would not require substantial removal of the as-constructed wall or much of the fill behind it,” ArDOT Public Information Officer Dave Parker said in an email.
He said ArDOT’s bridge division sent the manufacturer of the mechanically stabilized earth, or MSE, retaining wall incorrect elevations for the top of the wall, making it too short.
“This was not caught until the wall panels were erected and the fill was placed behind the walls,” Parker said. “The walls are provided in panels that are stacked on top of each other with reinforcing strips going back behind the wall.
“To my knowledge, erosion has not been an issue. It is more of an issue of having too steep of a slope behind the wall to be able to maintain the slope and prevent long-term issues.”
Change orders have increased the project cost by 7% over the $75.15 million contract McGeorge was awarded in November 2019. The updated cost
of more than $80 million doesn’t include the MSE wall change order, which ArDOT said has yet to be completed.
Garland County contributed to the project, pledging $30 million from the $54.7 million bond issue voters authorized in a June 2016 special election. The ballot title they endorsed by an almost two-to-one margin reauthorized a 0.625% countywide sales tax to secure the debt. Collections resumed in July 2017 after being suspended during the first half of that year.
Parker said the bridge division provided the correct specs for the wall.
“The specs the contractor was provided were correct,” he said. “The construction plans contained specific retaining wall details the contractor needed to construct the retaining walls. These details consisted of wall location, orientation, length and wall elevations. The top of wall elevations detailed in the construction plans ArDOT provided to the contractor were in error or detailed incorrectly. The elevations were wrong.”
ArDOT said in November the two-lane highway through the rugged backcountry east of Hot Springs National Park will cut travel time in half between Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village.