MinerAlert
MinerAlert
Building the Spaghetti Bowl
The mission of the engineers at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT) is to improve connectivity and mobility. The Spaghetti Bowl highway interchange, which connects Interstates 10, 110, and Highway 54, is the most visible example of this connectedness and mobility. The 1965-built interchange was recently updated by TxDoT as part of the I-10 Connect project. Project manager Rebecca Pinto worked on this roadway design project that linked I-10 to Loop 375, improved signage, and maintained traffic flow to and from El Paso’s largest Port of Entry, the Bridge of the Americas. The poet David Byrne once said that highway interchanges are the cathedrals of our time.
Construyendo el Distribuidor Vial (Spaghetti Bowl)
La misión de los ingenieros del Departamento de Transporte de Texas (TxDoT, por sus siglas en inglés) es mejorar la conectividad y la movilidad. El intercambio del distribuidor vial (Spaghetti Bowl), que conecta las carreteras interestatales 10, 110 y 54, es el ejemplo más visible de esta conectividad y movilidad. El intercambio construido en 1965 fue actualizado recientemente por TxDoT como parte del proyecto I-10 Connect. La gerente de proyecto, Rebecca Pinto, trabajó en este proyecto de diseño vial que unió la I-10 con el Loop 375, mejoró la señalización y mantuvo el flujo de tráfico desde y hacia el puerto de entrada más grande de El Paso, el Puente de las Américas. El poeta David Byrne dijo una vez que los intercambios de carreteras son las catedrales de nuestro tiempo.
CE: What projects in the El Paso area have your worked on?
BG: The crown jewel of all the projects I've ever done is the campus transformation project which was probably the most challenging project I ever worked on in my career. We had to make sure that whatever we were proposing was going to work, we had a budget and soil and site characteristics that were very challenging. I can say though, of all the projects I've ever worked on, that was probably the most interesting and most exciting. I spend a lot of time on campus and it's nice to see the final product. There were also a couple of soccer fields in a pond below the Spaghetti Bowl that occurred as a result of Storm 2006. That was another challenging project. The unfortunate thing is that due to the floods, there were several families displaced. The final product was something good that came out of it. We're happy to have been a part of something good for the community.
Bobby Gonzalez
Title: Geotechnical Engineer
View Full Size
CE: What projects in the El Paso area have your worked on?
DV: In the last seven years or so, every single project probably touched something concrete-related in this market. I guess you could say my career started at Ft. Bliss and then from there jumped to the Fountains of Farah. Some eye-catching projects include the east side Aquatic Center as well as Top Golf, where we did a three-story retaining wall, and at I-Fly, a wind tunnel with tall concrete panels to create the upper air chamber. The projects we did for TxDot were the UTEP monuments, the Texas Tech monuments, and the towers. My favorite of that project was the tower by the Spaghetti Bowl. That's the tallest tilt-up concrete panel in El Paso.
David Venegas
Title: