Halfway River Bridge Construction Supervision

2020 – Ongoing | Highway 29, north of Fort St. John, BC

McElhanney is providing construction contract management, quality assurance, and construction inspection of the largest structure in BC north of Vancouver – the Halfway River Bridge, about 45km north of Fort St. John in northeast BC. The project is well ahead of schedule, with about 150 workers on site at a time (and all following pandemic safety procedures), compared to 20 for a typical bridge. At the project’s end, crews will have poured 12,000m³ of concrete to construct the piers that rise out of the Halfway River – up to 50m in the air!

The construction speed is commendable thanks to the efforts of the project team. Since breaking ground in January 2020, it has already reached a milestone with the placement of girders on their support structures. To achieve and sustain this incredible pace, McElhanney developed a new electronic Quality Assurance (QA) plan to maximize communication and efficiency. As part of this plan, field staff input project data and information into iPads, allowing offsite project team members to receive real-time updates.

McElhanney Project Manager, Marcus Barber, applauded the efforts of the project team: “they are doing fantastic work, especially with the extra challenges of COVID-19. There have been a lot of personal sacrifices. It’s a huge team effort,” he said.

The project, which is the largest traditionally tendered bridge project in BC history, has also given younger staff an opportunity to work on a large-scale project while being mentored by senior colleagues in construction supervision.

Work on the bridge, which is owned by the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and funded by BC Hydro, will wrap up by the end of 2021.