Mulkey Receives Innovative Transportation Solutions Award for Morganton Road Improvements Project in Fayetteville

Raleigh, NC—Apr. 6, 2011— Mulkey Engineers & Consultants’ planning and design work on the Morganton Road Bridge Replacement/Widening/Intersection Improvements in Fayetteville, N.C., has captured the 2011 Innovative Transportation Solutions Award from the N.C. Triangle Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar. The .6-mile long project that expanded the roadway and bridge from six to eight lanes will now be submitted for the international WTS competition.

Improving safety along Morganton Road was a primary purpose of the project, which involved replacing a 30-year old structurally deficient bridge, building three retaining walls and improving four intersections. There were 226 accidents and one fatality reported for the project area in the three years before the project began.

The road was closed at the interchange ramps for six months to expedite the bridge replacement process and save $640,000. The retaining walls enabled the project to stay within the existing right-of-way. The existing bridge columns and footings were reused, saving 12 cubic yards of concrete and 30,000 pounds of reinforcing steel. Project construction was completed under budget by 2.8 percent, saving $331,000.

Morganton Road is a congested area that connects two major retail areas and crosses over the All-American Freeway, the main entrance point onto Fort Bragg. These improvements benefit the more than 30,000 vehicles that travel the road daily, and this volume increases 15 percent during the holiday shopping season from Thanksgiving to mid-January.