 Graves Avenue was located in central Florida between Orlando and Daytona Beach. It's the fastest growing region in the state, and the Graves Avenue Bridge crosses over Interstate 4 in an area that sees an average of 70,000 cars a day. The bridge was built in 1958 when this was the land of citrus, but the population explosion and subsequent widening of I-4 from 4 to 6 lanes in the area meant the old bridge had to go. Officials from the Florida Department of Transportation had seen an innovative bridge building technique in use overseas. There, crews used self-propelled modular transporters or SPMTs to lift old bridges out of the way and then replace them with pre-constructed bridge spans in a short amount of time. We do a lot of this over in Europe. In Europe, it's a definite need to do bridges quickly because when you pay up traffic, you literally affect countries. We've done several presentations to various DOTs in Florida. It was one of the first ones to say, yeah, this is a good idea. The Graves Avenue project is the first time SPMTs have been used in the construction of a bridge over an Interstate highway in the United States. As work on the project began, the Graves Avenue Bridge was closed to traffic in December of last year and crews began tearing away the outer spans. For several weeks, this is what drivers saw as they traveled underneath the old Graves Avenue Bridge simply perched atop its support piers. Then less than a month later in early January, the SPMTs arrived in Florida and it was time to remove the old spans of the bridge. During rolling roadblocks on I-4, it took only about 20 minutes during the overnight hours of two non-consecutive nights to remove the spans. The wow factor of the project was not lost on the local media. Tonight, transportation workers are going to roll out an amazing piece of construction equipment that'll practically eliminate any traffic delays. It is an amazing feat. Demolition crews moved an entire bridge from over I-4 overnight. A massive lift removed the span over the westbound lanes and because of that state-of-the-art equipment, the lanes were only shut down for about 25 minutes. New from overnight road construction crews have finished removing the second span of the Graves Avenue Overpass on I-4 in Volusia County. A heavy lifting piece of machinery carried the overpass from its foundation to the side of the road. DOT says this method of removal cost more money but saves months of construction time. A new bridge is being built on the side of the road and then will be lifted and put right into place. Even people close to the project were impressed. It's one of the most unique things I've seen happen. But to see that bridge section at 260 tons lift so easily and walk away so smoothly, it was impressive. After the two old spans of the Graves Avenue Bridge were demolished in a matter of days instead of weeks, work immediately began on the two new spans in the construction yard along the side of I-4 instead of over I-4. Then in June the SPMTs were back for an even bigger job, the installation of the new spans. The first step involved lifting the spans to setting height, a process that took several days. Then overnight on a weekend when traffic volume is lowest, detours on I-4 rerouted traffic and a curious crowd watched as the SPMTs moved the first span into place. One week later there was a different crowd. These were transportation officials from all over the United States and beyond who came to witness history in the making as the second span of the Graves Avenue Bridge was installed. Crews had less than one inch clearance on each end to slide the second span into place. We're very excited to be here and we're really thankful that FDOT has allowed us to be here. I think it was really impressive. Everything went smoothly without a hitch. We're going to definitely be using this technology in Canada. Florida Department of Transportation officials were pleased with this new process and plan to investigate the use of SPMTs in other projects. This won't be an application that you use everywhere but we'll try to bracket where you'd use it for what kind of projects you use it on and then the engineers will have to make a judgment. We certainly have a lot of hopes and we think that there are projects in constrained areas that will benefit from this technology. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the interstate system transportation engineers are looking for innovative construction techniques that allow them to upgrade the aging system with minimal disruption for drivers. The Federal Highway Administration hopes the use of self-propelled modular transporters will do just that.