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Nominee: Innovative Management – Medium Project “Now we’ll be able to get more residents and visitors to come downtown, which will boost our revitalization efforts.” The Lloyd Expressway (SR 62) is a major east-west corridor through Evansville, locally known as the gateway to Downtown Evansville. The Expressway is a 6-lane urban freeway with tight diamond interchanges that feed frontage roads via slip ramps. For years, the freeway configuration made a very abrupt stop at the signalized intersection of Lloyd Expressway and Fulton Avenue. The SR 62 project entailed working adjacent to historical buildings, dismantling the at-grade intersection, building demolition, removal of contaminated soils, navigating the footprint of previous road and building projects, and maintaining traffic to achieve only 14 days of full intersection closure. As an example of one of the many challenges the project team overcame, on the southeast corner of the intersection sat the Orr Iron Company Building, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original Lloyd Expressway curved to avoid this building at the Fulton Avenue intersection, creating numerous traffic operations challenges. Working through numerous environmental procedures, Indiana DOT obtained approval to demolish the Orr Iron Company Building, and an outdoor interpretive center was constructed at a nearby park along Pigeon Creek as mitigation for the loss of the historic structure. The final product will be an interchange with SR 62 on a new elevated roadway with Fulton Avenue passing underneath a new bridge and access points to SR 62 in all quadrants. Several innovative changes made to construction scheduling and design, as well as intense coordination with the City of Evansville and the Army Corps of Engineers, allowed the project to be completed ahead of its original completion with some significant cost savings. The new interchange provides an excellent gateway into Evansville’s downtown riverfront attractions. |
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America's Transportation Awards 