Wyoming Engineering Society (WES)

The Wyoming Engineering Society (WES) has recognized Wyoming Department of Transportation’s West Belt Loop project as the co-winner of its 2016 President’s Project of the Year award. WES gives this honor annually for outstanding engineering or surveying projects used by and benefitting people of the state.

The project applicants were Wyoming Department of Transportation (a project partner and Owner), and AVI Professional Corporation who completed the engineering design for the project.

Wyo. Highway 257 (West Belt Loop Road) connects Wyo. Highway 220 to U.S. Highway 20-26 and is approximately 7.5 miles in total length. The roadway consists of two (2) bridges and numerous box culverts and stock crossings. Construction for this bypass consisted of two (2) phases. Phase 1 construction began in 2013 and consisted primarily of roadway grading, bridge construction, and the re-alignments of both Robertson Road and Poison Spider Road. The entire road bed was prepared from the approximately three(3) million cubic yards of material excavated throughout the project with the majority of the material being generated from the “Big Cut” area just north of the Bridge spanning the North Platte River.

Phase 2 of the project began in the fall of 2014 and consisted of placing concrete surfacing along the constructed West Belt Loop roadbed, construction of the Oregon Trail Scenic and interpretive parking area, signing and striping, along with reconstruction of a small portion of US 20-26 to improve storm drainage. The construction cost for both phases of the Casper West Belt Loop project was approximately $36 million. The project was completed on December 1st, 2016.

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