Client Solutions / Markets / Transportation

Transportation

Serving Every Facet of the Industry

As a leading provider of professional consulting services to the transportation market, Kleinfelder can provide the expertise and resources to handle even the most demanding jobs with the utmost of ingenuity and integrity. Our solutions serve every facet of the industry including ports and harbors, highways and roadways, heavy and light rail and aviation.

Innovative Solutions for Critical Issues

With the recent attention to failures in U.S. transportation infrastructure, and a growing population straining the existing networks, Kleinfelder's diverse group of experts are prepared to serve the industry from initial planning, to post-construction inspection and service. Our extensive experience with design-build and public-private partnerships demonstrates the our firm's ability to see the big picture to define critical issues in the early stages of a project and deliver innovative solutions to avoid cost increases and schedule delays.

Local Understanding

With offices across the country, our professionals are able to quickly respond to transportation project needs with the appropriate local knowledge and experience to provide the best solution. With understanding of the local natural environment matched with unsurpassed experience and expertise, Kleinfelder has the solution to solve your transportation challenge.

Innovative Solution Secures Iconic Bridge - Golden Gate Seismic Retrofit

When complete in 2012, the $450 million Golden Gate Bridge seismic retrofit will have the structural strength to withstand an 8.3 scale magnitude earthquake from the potentially destructive forces of the nearby San Andreas or Hayward faults. A key part of this massive project is the evaluation and retrofit of the Golden Gate Bridge's deep-seated foundation, specifically the North Anchorage Housing/North Pylon.

The bridge engineering team looked to Kleinfelder's geotechnical expertise to recommend a feasible seismic design retrofit for the North Pylon and North Anchorage Housing foundation. After a detailed analysis of rock conditions and rock mass strength, the Kleinfelder team introduced a significantly more refined and scaled-down foundation retrofit that provides strengthening only where rock conditions require, rather than providing resistance through purely structural means. In less than nine months, Kleinfelder developed a creative, robust combination of high-capacity micropiles, rock anchors and rock bolting.

Buried deep into the rocky earth, the North Anchorage Housing/North Pylon encloses and protects the main suspension cables and anchorage assemblies, serves as a roadway deck, supports the end of the stiffening trusses and houses the main cable tie-downs – none of which was designed to withstand extreme seismic activity. Additionally, the North Pylon structure is located on a hillside creating a 50-foot difference in the leg length, thus impacting the overall seismic response of the entire structure.

Kleinfelder's innovative geotechnical experts pioneered a unique concrete "strut/anchor block" along the upper portion of the North Pylon east leg to support the leg on more competent bedrock and provide a more uniform seismic response while not impacting the architectural restrictions on the historic structure.

The firm's geotechnical report was accepted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and California Department of Transportation with minimal comments and the entire design has been accepted by FHWA allowing the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District to proceed with bidding and construction of the project to begin in 2008.

“Mark Stanley, with Kleinfelder, has been a valuable member of a longstanding design team providing state-of-the-art seismic services to the Golden Gate Bridge District.”

— Kuang Lim, Ph.D., P.E., Senior Project Manager, HDR Engineering, Inc.

Transportation Program

Larry Peterson, Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing
(208) 893-9700
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