Options

Paragon Bridge Works offers several options that we can build for you or you can build based on our designs. As always, you are also welcome to build your own guardrails or decking or facades. The following is just a sample of what Paragon can do for you. We can also custom design something to fit your exact needs or tweak our existing packages to better fit your application.

1. Decking Options.
2. Pedestrian Guardrail Options.
3. Vehicular Guardrail Options.
4. Combination Pedestrian & Vehicular Guardrail Options.
5. Facade Options.
6. Abutment Options:

1.0 Decking Options:

Paragon offers a broad range of decking materials to fit your application and your budget. All of our bridge spans usually come with some sort of an existing decking which could be generalized as:

• 20' & 40' bridge spans: These units usually come with 2" X 6" (nominal) deck boards that run length wise. There can sometimes be 1" gaps in between each deck board but are usually pretty tight together. Some units might have a folding bulkhead at each end which is about 8' tall when in the up-right position. This bulkhead is made of steel and when in the down or folded position will be flush with the other deck boards. Paragon usually removes these bulkheads but can leave them on if you prefer to have a secondary steel deck over the wooden deck. All of the deck styles will have the top of the decking flush with the top of the main bridge beams that also run the length of the bridge span. There are several smaller steel cross members that run perpendicular to the bridge span from main bridge beam to main bridge beam.
  
  • Is the deck okay to use as-is for pedestrian use? While the boards could easily support pedestrian use, there is a concern with the gaps in between the deck boards and the orientation of the deck boards. Just imagine a cyclist getting their front tire stuck in between deck boards! Paragon strongly recommends a secondary layer of wood, added on top of the existing wood decking, which should be placed perpendicular to the bridge span.
  • Is the deck okay to use for vehicular traffic? While the deck boards are designed to support a considerable amount of weight, our primary concern is wear. It would not take much for a rock pinned in between a tire and the deck to start breaking the wood up. Once you have rocks embedded in wood things will start falling apart very quickly. For lighter loads, such as pick-ups and automobiles, you could be okay with a secondary layer of nominal 2" thick deck boards but for heavier loads you really need to go with a nominal 3" thick deck boards. Again, these are placed on top of the existing deck boards. Orientation of deck boards does not really matter if pedestrians will not be using the bridge.
  • Can I drive over the bridge decking as-is for now and apply a secondary layer of deck boards at a latter time? Our primary concern is wear and breakage of the primary deck layer. When Paragon builds a bridge we drive our machinery over the bridge with just plywood over the existing decking. Of course, we are very cautious to keep all debris off of the deck. Another concern is sometimes "short term" turns into months and years and it is for that reason we usually advise clients to put something over the deck to protect it. Plywood is also used for temporary pedestrian crossings but it doesn't look very good.
  • What condition will the existing or primary deck boards be in? In general, Paragon inspects each bridge span and secures any loose boards or replaces bad boards. You should get a deck that is in fairly good condition. Just keep in mind that these are used deck boards.
  • How wide is the bridge span? The overall width of these units is about 8'.
    
• 55' - 65' bridge spans: These units usually come with 3" X 10" deck boards that run perpendicular to the bridge span. Boards are usually pretty tight together. The condition of these decks varies greatly and are typically fair to poor condition. Paragon only sells these decks as-is and does not automatically replace or secure deck boards since most of our clients who purchase these usually want the entire deck removed and replaced with a steel deck.
  • Is the existing deck on these units good for pedestrian use since these boards are placed perpendicular to the bridge span? Generally...No because of the condition of the deck boards. These boards are usually pretty weathered with some boards 3" thick and others 3 1/2" while other might be 2 3/4". This would cause a tripping hazard.
  • Is the existing deck boards good for vehicular traffic? There is plenty of strength left in these deck boards but the primary concern is debris, such as rocks, damaging the deck boards. However, these boards will fair considerably better than the deck boards on 20' and 40' units.
  • How difficult is it to replace these deck boards? Because these boards are so thick and can be sometimes made up of oak they tent to be time consuming to replace or repair.
• 89' bridge spans: These units generally come with a steel deck while some are equipped with a grating type deck. A secondary deck is not required for vehicular traffic. Decking has weep holes for drainage. Steel decks range from 1/4" to 1/2" thick. Grating is extra heavy duty and can support vehicular traffic.
  • Why would I want a secondary deck? It would look nicer than bare steel. You can paint the steel deck but paint material should have some type of grip surface as to prevent it from becoming slippery.
  • Is the steel deck slippery? It can be, especially if the weep holes become plugged up with debris. We have found that in snowy areas that the bare steel melts the snow pretty quickly as the metal acts like a conduit for the sun to heat up.
  • Is the existing decking good for pedestrians? Yes...for the most part. Sometimes there are brackets or plates that may need to be removed in order to eliminate it as a tripping hazard.
    
    
    
  Now, lets review the different types of deck material, or secondary decking, that may be available to you. Please keep in mind that certain bridge span styles vary and we are not trying to cover every single possibility. The following generalities should be considers:
  • Premium Brown Pressure Treated (PBPT): These boards have the same characteristic of the ugly green pressure treated boards but are very nice looking. They hold up very well and require little maintenance. They have a reddish brown to a dark brown dye. These boards are available in the most common dimensional sizes, including 2X4 to 2X12 including 4X4 and 6X6 posts. Cost is very competitive and gives you an outstanding value. These boards should only be used as the wearing surface for pedestrian and light vehicular traffic. These boards gives a bridge a little more elegant look, when matched up with steel guardrails. Your bridge can look more commercial or industrial when matched up with wooden guardrails or just a curb. Good choice for parks.
  • Douglas Fir (DF): These boards are usually offered in an untreated state which requires you to stain or seal them after your bridge is installed. Boards come in many different dimensions including 2X6 to 2X12 as well as 3X10 to 3X12 with 4X4, 6X6, and 8X8 posts available. These boards will give your bridge a more rustic look. Paragon can pressure treat DF but, since the boards are fairly dense, the treating process does not penetrate into the wood as well. This is an excellent choice for vehicular traffic.
  • Steel angle iron: We basically place 6" X 6" angle iron perpendicular to the bridge span and weld them directly to the bridge span. The legs of the angle iron point down making it look like mountain peeks. Fill material, such as gravel, can be placed over the angle iron to provide a smoother ride. This option works great for heavy construction traffic. The bridge will have a heavy industrial look to it. We usually match this decking up with some sort of vehicular guardrail.
  • Concrete: Some preparation work must be done to the bridge span in order to accept concrete, such as removing the existing wooden deck and applying a metal pan. Wet concrete can be very heavy and may require you to brace the mid point of the bridge while the concrete cures. This is a good choice for vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Concrete doesn't really give the bridge any specific look or feel by itself so the look and feel of the bridge will come from the guardrails. Concrete can be dyed or stamped as client desires. Concrete will need to be poured after bridge is set in place.
  • Asphalt: While we have had clients apply asphalt to their bridges, Paragon does not pretend to know much about the characteristics of asphalt. You should have your asphalt contractor give us a call to determine what the best approach would be.
  • Reconstituted rubber: This is basically a recycled rubber pad, about 1/2" thick. It comes in rolls that gets glued down to the metal subsurface that is applied over the existing wooden deck. It is black in color and looks like asphalt after it is installed. Good for pedestrian use only.
  • Composite decking: This is similar to the Trex product sold elsewhere. Our composite decking surface comes in 1" X 6" pieces with 3 colors to choice from (gray, tan, brown). Good for pedestrian traffic only. Gives the bridge a classy and functional look. Very little maintenance required.
  • Ipe: Paragon does offer various Brazilian iron woods such as Tigerwood, Ipe, and Brazilian redwood. Good for pedestrian use. Pricey but very durable.

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• 2.0 Pedestrian Guardrail Options:
  
  Paragon Bridge Works offers several packages of steel and wood and steel/wood pedestrian guardrails. Our guardrails as designed to meet or exceed AASHTO specifications. While the cost of guardrails is always a consideration you should also consider the cost of not having any protecting for pedestrians as the cost of somebody getting hurt can quickly exceed the cost of the guardrail. Here are some things to consider:
  • Curb or no curb: A curb will double as a kick board and will prevent things from rolling off of the bridge. Curbs are recommended for public bridges or areas where you do not want people going under the bridge to retrieve items that may have fallen off of the bridge. From a cosmetic standpoint, curbs add a lot of "curb appeal". They give the bridge a more finished look, giving the deck boards a nice place to terminate. They also give a stone facade a lot of pazaz This is a place where you can save money as they are not required.
  • Wood or steel or both: This really comes down to budget and what look you are going for. All are excellent choices.
  • Posts built on the bridge or off the sides: There are 2 basic places for us to put your posts, either on the bridge itself or attaching them to the sides of the bridge span. This greatly depends on many factors beyond the guardrails. If a stone facade is applied then we will probably want to put the posts on the bridge. If a curb is selected then the posts are generally applied on top of the curb. If wooden posts are desired then we generally look for ways to mount them on the sides of the bridge span. We also look at your desired walking lane, or inside bridge width, and try to come up with something that meets your minimum requirements.
  • Build them latter: Paragon understands that there may be a limited budget or other factors that prevent you from building guardrails right now. Your guardrails can be added at any time you desire. Just keep in mind that your costs will go up as your contractor will need to come to your bridge site and they will need to work on a bridge...with no guardrails which makes it a little hazardous.

Some of your choices for pedestrian guardrails include:

• Delta: This is a classic all steel design with 2 1/2" square posts, 2" horizontal rails, and 5/8" square pickets. This will give your bridge a classic or elegant look and feel. Maintenance is very low. We can paint this any color you like. This guardrail is usually mounted on the top of the bridge span.
  
  
• Trinidad: This is basically the Delta with an 8" curb mounted under the guardrails. The curb would be mounted on the top of the bridge span.
  
• Conifer: This is another classic design utilizing all Premium Brown Pressure Treated (PBPT) boards and posts. This design is widely used by the US government in public nature preserves or wildlife areas. It is usually mounted on the sides of the bridge beams. Very nice, classic look and feel.
  
  
• Parachute: Similar to the Conifer but constructed out of Douglas Fir rails and Douglas Fir posts. Gives the bridge a more rustic look. Does require treating or staining.
  
  
• Walden: We took the classic look of the Conifer and stepped up a notch with steel posts. Painting these posts gives it a totally different look and feel depending on the color you choose. Durability is increased because of the steel posts. This is a top choice for the ability to make your bridge look customized while maintaining tight budgets. More US government agencies are starting to go with this choice.
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• Pagosa: This is essentially the Walden with the addition of a 8" steel curb. Dresses up the bridge very nicely, gives it a very unique look and feel. This is the most popular choice for almost all applications.
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• Cortez: This is Paragon's very unique contemporary design with an eye on value. The 8" steel curb and 6" steel posts and 6" X 1" steel top cord make it look massive and strong while the Premium Brown Pressure Treated vertical slats soften the bridge and gives it a very clean look. You've got to see this one.
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• 3.0 Vehicular Guardrail Options:

Paragon Bridge Works offers a few packages of steel vehicular guardrails. Most of our vehicular guardrails are custom designed to fit your application. Our guardrails as designed to meet or exceed AASHTO specifications. While the cost of guardrails is always a consideration you should also consider the cost of not having any protecting for vehicles as the cost of somebody getting hurt can quickly exceed the cost of the guardrail. Here are some things to consider:

• Curb or no curb or only a curb: Curbs will give your bridge a more finished look but are not required. While having just a curb for protection may be a good idea for golf carts or small vehicles they may not be able to stop a vehicle from falling over your bridge if they are traveling at high speeds. Curbs by themselves also gives some people added comfort. From a cosmetic standpoint, curbs add a lot of "curb appeal". They give the bridge a more finished look, giving the deck boards a nice place to terminate. They also give a stone facade a lot of pazaz This is a place where you can save money as they are not required.
• Posts built on the bridge or off the sides: There are 2 basic places for us to put your posts, either on the bridge itself or attaching them to the sides of the bridge span. This greatly depends on many factors beyond the guardrails. If a stone facade is applied then we will probably want to put the posts on the bridge. If a curb is selected then the posts are generally applied on top of the curb. We also look at your desired walking lane, or inside bridge width, and try to come up with something that meets your minimum requirements.
• Build them latter: Paragon understands that there may be a limited budget or other factors that prevent you from building guardrails right now. Your guardrails can be added at any time you desire. Just keep in mind that your costs will go up as your contractor will need to come to your bridge site and they will need to work on a bridge...with no guardrails which makes it a little hazardous.

Some of your choices for vehicular guardrails include:

• Silt: This is a bare bones, nothing fancy vehicular guardrail...but it does it's job well. Costs are kept down because of the simplicity of it.
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• Carbondale: This is the Silt with a 8" curb added. Still very simplistic but with a little nicer look to it.
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• 4.0 Combination Pedestrian & Vehicular Guardrail Options:

Paragon Bridge Works offers a few packages of all steel and steel/wood combination pedestrian and vehicular guardrails. Our guardrails as designed to meet or exceed AASHTO specifications. While the cost of guardrails is always a consideration you should also consider the cost of not having any protecting for pedestrians or vehicles as the cost of somebody getting hurt can quickly exceed the cost of the guardrail. Here are some things to consider:

• Wood or wood and steel: This really comes down to budget and what look you are going for. All are excellent choices.
• Build them latter: Paragon understands that there may be a limited budget or other factors that prevent you from building guardrails right now. Your guardrails can be added at any time you desire. Just keep in mind that your costs will go up as your contractor will need to come to your bridge site and they will need to work on a bridge...with no guardrails which makes it a little hazardous.

Some of your choices for pedestrian guardrails include:

• Anvil: We basically merged the classic look of the Delta pedestrian guardrail with the simplicity of the Carbondale vehicular guardrail to come up with a classic yet very functional design. Very low maintenance because of its all steel design. The entire package can be painted the same color or you can choose to have two colors as well.
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• Telluride: We started with what works well, the Carbondale vehicular guardrail, and added the ultimate look of the Cortez pedestrian guardrail. The result is the pride of our internal creativity ...especially considering the value.
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• 5.0 Facade Options:

This is where Paragon can really shine! While some clients like the look of recycled railroad cars, others prefer to hide that fact. Considerable time and resources have been spent in this area in order to provide a board scope of what works and what doesn't.

Paragon's first facade was a simple paint job. While this looks pretty good you can still tell that it's a railroad flat car if you look real close. That was followed by adding a steel skirt to the sides of the railcar or bridge then painting the skirt. This essentially hid the railcar completely. Then came the stone facade. This was a bit tricky as the most difficult part of this is building the sub frame to accept lath which is what stone is applied to. Paragon does use faux or laminate or "fake" stone in order to keep the weight down. So now we can also extend this sub frame and extend it below the railcar in order to give us an arched panel that the stone can be applied to. What you essentially end up with is a bridge that looks like an old stone bridge.

What would you like for us to do next? Paragon is currently exploring solar powered, low voltage, LED lights that are built into the guardrails. We are always open to a new challenge. This system will be fully self contained with little maintenance needed.

Adding a facade, even as simple as a basic paint job, can turn your bridge into something that looks custom made for your site. You pick the paint color, we apply the paint at our facility before the bridge ships out to you. Just keep in mind that not all of Paragon's facilities offer painting abilities.

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5.0 Abutment Options:

Paragon offers several abutment options to fit most bridge applications. Abutments should be used in all bridge applications, even temporary bridges. Each bank should have it's own abutment. Paragon can also design center piers or intermediate piers.

Cast in place (CIP) is the traditional way of building abutments. You simply excavate a hole, build forms, add rebar, then pour the concrete in. The type or style of CIP abutment depends on your site. The two most common are:

Spread footer abutment: This is essentially a big rectangle with lots of rebar, maybe something like 3' X 3' X the width of the bridge. These are popular because they are easy to build.

Stem wall abutment: With this design, you basically have a concrete footer, maybe something like 2' tall X 5' wide X width of the bridge. Then you build a slender stem wall off of the footer, maybe something like a 12" thick wall. The height of this wall will depend on how low the footer needs to be built and how high your bridge needs to be placed. In general, it can be anywhere from 5' to 55' tall. This abutment style is considerable more difficult to build because there is a multi stop process in building the footer first then the stem wall. This design is popular in areas where the abutment needs to be deep in the ground for whatever reason...and there are a lot of reasons why your abutment needs to be deep in the ground. A site civil engineer should be able to help us determine how deep your abutments needs to be.

The up side to any CIP abutment is that you can hire local concrete crews to build this for you. You are also buying concrete from your local concrete batch plant so availability should not be a problem. The down side to CIP abutments is that most concrete crews will charge you a premium to build bridge abutments. Not necessarily because its more difficult than anything else but because it is probably new to them and pushes them outside of their comfort zone. Poor weather can also affect your progress as well as the ability to get a concrete truck to the abutment locations. You are probably building a bridge in order to allow you to get a concrete truck over a water way so how do you get a concrete truck over a water way without a bridge? It can be a challenging problem but Paragon has alternative options for you.

Pre-cast concrete abutments! In order to resolve some of the negative aspects of concrete work, Paragon set to utilize pre-cast concrete abutments. Pre-cast can be poured in doors all year long, the weather is no longer a concern. Pre-cast can be duplicated all over the country which resolved our delivery concerns. Paragon has over 100 concrete sub-contractors that builds our pre-cast blocks for us. These pre-cast blocks are designed to be set with 2 men and a backhoe. Our blocks are pre-engineered.

The contracts we have with our pre-cast contractors does not allow us to send our customers to their facilities. We have negotiated aggressive pricing but we have also agreed to keep our customers out of their way. All of our subs names and locations are confidential. It saves them time and saves our customers money.

The following is a sample of how many pre-cast subcontractors we usually have that can pour our pre-cast abutment blocks for us (as of 03/01/10). There is probably one closer to you than you might think.

• Alabama: 2
• Arizona: 2
• Arkansas: 1
• California: 7
• Colorado: 6
• Florida: 3
• Georgia: 2
• Idaho: 2
• Illinois: 2
• Indiana: 5
• Iowa: 1
• Kansas: 3
• Kentucky: 5
• Louisiana: 1
• Maryland: 1
• Michigan: 6
• Minnesota: 3
• Missouri: 4
• Mississippi: 2
• Montana: 1
• Nebraska: 1
• Nevada: 2
• New England states: 11
• New Jersey: 3
• New Mexico: 2
• New York: 9
• North Carolina: 5
• Ohio: 5
• Oklahoma: 1
• Oregon: 3
• Pennsylvania: 6
• South Carolina: 1
• South Dakota: 1
• Tennessee: 5
• Texas: 4
• Utah: 4
• Virginia: 2
• Washington: 6
• West Virginia: 1
• Wisconsin: 4
• Wyoming: 1

You are also welcome to use any other pre-cast block you see fit. In most cases another pre-cast block might work but you should contact a licensed professional engineer to make that determination. It is not cost effective for our engineers to evaluate your pre-cast blocks.

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