Buffalo-Niagara Airport

Technical Description:

• Span: 36 ft
• Rise: 13 ft
• Length: 160 ft

A 160-foot vehicular access tunnel was installed at the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport using 36-foot span x 13 foot-high components set on 3-feet high cast-in- place pedestal walls. The CON/SPAN^® structure links two long-term surface lots creating 1,000 new parking spaces for passengers. The roadway above the tunnel serves as a taxi overpass. The project is part of the east access improvements and parking expansion Phase III, a $4.8 million project under the auspices of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA).

 The NFTA project also includes the introduction in New York of MurEbal^®, a precast concrete modular wall system with a variety of applications, including bridge abutments, retaining walls and pedestal walls. The system, used extensively throughout Europe, was developed in France and introduced in the United States by Contech Construction Products Inc.

The 12,000 square-foot MurEbal wingwalls serve as retaining walls for the approaches to the tunnel. The MurEbal approach walls are 200 feet, 5 inches long on the south side of the tunnel and 340 feet long on the north side. The panels, precast in 111 pieces and ranging from 4 feet to 22 feet, were designed with a 5-foot x 5-foot grid pattern to match existing approach walls elsewhere on airport property.

Technical Description:

• Span: 36 ft
• Rise: 13 ft
• Length: 160 ft