The replacement of the 145th Street Bridge was part of the Improvement of East River Bridges project from 2000-2012, along with Willis Avenue Bridge and Third Avenue Bridge. Similar to these two bridges, the steel components for the approach and new swing span were made off-site in Pennsylvania in late 2005, and was scheduled to for float‐in in early February 2007.

UrbanTech played a leading role in the engineering effort of the Replacement of the 145th Street Bridge project. Contracted with Kiewit, UrbanTech’s scope of work included: design of load‐out procedure to move the completed assembled swing span from land onto a transport barge, design all temporary structures that are required for the load‐out, design lashing for in‐land tow of the new swing span from Albany NY, to its final destination in Manhattan, design float‐in process and all required temporary structures, and design de‐stressing procedure for separating the swing span into three segments.

The engineering work involved in this project covers wide range of the construction engineering spectrum – from structural engineering to naval architecture. The in‐depth analysis of the bridge under all construction stages requires dynamic and nonlinear finite element analysis, and seamless coordination between structural engineers, naval architects, and construction engineers.