A bridge to boast about

Some of the nation’s leading transportation officials recently dedicated one of the country’s most notable new structures.

The Hoover Dam bypass bridge spanning the Colorado River and providing a major roadway connecting Arizona and Nevada is the second-highest bridge in the United States – and it’s the highest and longest bridge of its type in the Western hemisphere.

In reporting on its completion, KJZZ-91.5FM radio went to the head of Arizona State University’s Del E. Web School of Construction and two of the school’s students to talk about the magnitude of the construction and engineering feat exemplified by the bridge.

Reporter Dennis Lambert talked to G. Edward Gibson, chair of the construction school and interim director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Gibson describes the exacting orchestration of engineering and construction efforts it took to erect the 300-foot-high bypass.

Lambert also talked to ASU construction students Ashleigh Feiring and Silvino Villanueva.

Feiring explains what an “awesome” task it was mold so many tons of concrete into place across the river. Villanueva touts the project as the kind a once-in-lifetime achievement that construction students dream of working on.

It’s been named the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. O’Callaghan was a former Nevada governor and newspaper editor. Tillman is the former ASU student and football star who left a pro football career with the Arizona Cardinals to join the U.S. Army, and was killed by friendly fire in the war in Afghanistan.