The US 36/Rockville Road bridge over I-465 was struck by a northbound mobile car crusher during the morning rush hour of January 10, 2017. Indiana State Police and INDOT shut down both the overpass and a section of the interstate in order to assess the damage and develop an action plan. INDOT engineers determined that 4 of the 14 load-bearing pre-stressed concrete girders were damaged beyond repair and had to be removed.

INDOT and contractors mobilized the demolition equipment necessary to remove the damaged bridge sections. I-465 was reopened to traffic at ­­around 12:30 p.m. on January 11, just under 29 hours after the incident occurred. One lane of eastbound traffic on Rockville Road was temporarily shifted north across the median to use the undamaged westbound side of the bridge until reconstruction could be completed.

The Rockville Road bridge over I-465 was built in 2009 as part of the Accelerate 465 Corridor project. Each replacement beam measures 125 feet long and weighs nearly 70 tons. Four total beams were necessary to rebuild the bridge. On February 28, 2017, the beams were delivered to the site and installed that night.

Contractors were on a tight schedule to open the bridge before the Indianapolis 500 race day in May. On May 1, 2017, construction of the bridge was complete and the bridge was reopened to traffic.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Bunnell, W. A.; Harney, S. J.; Cox, E. D.; Ibrahim, E.; Bullock, D. M. (2017). Rockville Road Bridge Emergency Reconstruction. Purdue University Research Repository. doi:10.4231/R7XK8CJN

  BibTex | EndNote

1. bridge beam placement
2. bridge construction
3. bridge reconstruction
4. Civil Engineering
5. Civil Engineering (Dept)
6. construction time-lapse
7. Rockville Road
8. Rockville Road accident
9. Rockville Road bridge crash