Guernsey State Park Lakeshore Drive

Cheyenne, WY

Client:  State of Wyoming State Parks & Historic Sites

The Design/Engineering Challenge

Lakeshore Drive is a narrow two-lane paved road with little to no shoulder on either side that follows the east shore of Guernsey Reservoir. Lakeshore Drive is located within Guernsey State Park in south-central Wyoming.  It was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s by cutting into the side of the steep slopes that border the lake and using the excavated material as fill to construct the downslope side of the embankment. When the Wyoming Department of Transportation proposed improving Lakeshore Drive, a major consideration was retaining the historical nature of the road and minimizing impacts.

“Preserving the historical character of multiple project areas along Lakeshore Drive was a critical consideration in our civil design for Guernsey State Park.”

 The AVI Solution

AVI provided all civil design services for reconstruction and rehabilitation of Lakeshore Drive. The reconstruction of five separate project areas included removal of 6 to 18 feet of existing roadway embankment material and replacement with compacted granular materials, replacement of culverts and placement of riprap in key drainage areas on the roadway embankment out slope. In one selected area, approximately 9,000 cubic yards of rock was excavated to allow shifting the roadway and improving the sight distance around an outside hairpin curve.

General project components included surveying, retaining wall design, pavement reconstruction, headwall design and design of retaining wall facing to match the existing historic dry-stack retaining walls that are prevalent along Lakeshore Drive. To accommodate the reconstruction of over-steepened embankment slopes in three areas, our design called for construction of mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls. The walls extended to heights ranging from 6 to 18 feet using the proprietary Hilfiker welded wire wall system.