Route 460 Connector Bridge
Commonwealth, VA
The U.S. Route 460 Connector Bridge will provide a critical link in the mountainous region between southern Virginia and Kentucky known as Corridor Q. The bridge was considered the tallest in Virginia, upon completion in June of 2015, and is the largest design-build project in the Commonwealth. The project begins at the Kentucky state line with widening and realigning a .8-mile, four-lane highway and includes an access ramp to Route 80 and a bridge across Route 768 along with the 1,700-foot twin Connector Bridge.
AMT was the lead road designer and construction quality assurance manager (QAM) for this $113 million project. We provided and oversaw all highway design services on the rural principal arterial with connections to local routes and other local roadway improvements. We coordinated closely with members of the structural engineering team throughout the project and developed more than 50 construction packages to address the roadway, drainage, utility and traffic control related needs under our purview.
The roadway is cut into steep terrain with benched side slopes engineered to minimize earthwork and disturbance to the environment. To address the extensive earthwork needs stemming from the terrain and topography, approximately 2.6 million cubic yards of excavated material is planned to be placed in an engineered waste area on the project site. Stormwater management facilities and erosion control features were designed to minimize impacts to sensitive local streams and to control increases in stormwater runoff as a result of the large footprint of the project.
AMT prepared the Transportation Management Plan and is also providing construction quality assurance for testing and inspection of construction work on both the roadways and bridges for conformance with the contract plans and specifications.
