Big I

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A portion of the Big I from the northwest, in a photo taken from a surface road.

Big I is the name of the freeway interchange where I-25 and I-40 intersect in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is the busiest interchange in the state, handling an average of 300,000 vehicles per day. The Big I was originally built in 1966 as a simple cloverleaf interchange designed to handle 60,000 vehicles per day. By the late 1990s, however, the it could no longer handle Albuquerque's increasing traffic flows and needed to be replaced. Construction work on a new interchange began in June 2000 and lasted until May 2002. The reconstruction, which was the largest public works project ever undertaken in New Mexico, cost $291 million and took just over three years to complete (including the design process).

The new Big I is a five-level stack interchange capable of handling 400,000 vehicles per day. It has eight main flyover bridges, which were constructed from 663 concrete segments precast at the site, as well as 47 smaller bridges. The largest flyover bridge, which connects southbound I-25 to eastbound I-40, is 2504 feet long, 85 feet high, and made up of 206 individual concrete segments.

[edit] External links

• Albuquerque Tricentennial website
• American Segmental Bridge Institute website
• Google Maps Image of the Big I

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