It’s one of those instantly recognizable pieces of Americana that has been the hallmark of many summer road trips: the “Glass House” spanning I-44 just outside Vinita, Oklahoma.
It’s one of the biggest balancing acts we as engineers face: designing the most efficient and effective solutions for our clients while protecting the surrounding environment. Nowhere was this truer than in McCurtain County, Oklahoma.
MKEC Engineering, Inc. was chosen to work on a section of the Eastern Oklahoma County Corridor project between SE 44th Street and Reno Avenue. The new Eastern Oklahoma County Corridor alignment will connect I-40 to I-44 in eastern Oklahoma County, reducing the travel time between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
If you ever take a stroll down historic Route 66 and find yourself in Canute, Oklahoma, take a slight detour back to Interstate 40, and get a glimpse of the bridge that MKEC Engineering, Inc. helped reconstruct into a safety compliant, aesthetically pleasing structure.
We were asked to design a three-span bridge to replace an existing outmoded 1931 single-span steel trestle bridge over a tributary to the Arkansas River in north-central Oklahoma. This included relocating a driveway at one end of the bridge.