Looks terrific...and an improvement over the old 95 bridge....Kudos to Richard Kazarian and others for the spark to make the DOT redesign...
Pawtucket's new bridge to somewhere
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 29, 2009
By Bruce Landis
Journal Staff Writer
A Department of Transportation rendering of the new bridge over the Pawtucket River.
Photo courtesy of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation
PROVIDENCE - After deciding on arches as the main design element in the new Pawtucket River Bridge, the state Department of Transportation says it hopes to put the $75-million project out for bid this fall and start construction in the spring.
The design is based on a series of steel arches supporting the roadway from underneath. Artists' drawings show a structure considerably more involved than the existing bridge, which is built on steel girders running across the tops of concrete piers.
Contributing to the design, DOT officials said, are elements from other structures in Pawtucket built during the Great Depression, such as City Hall, McCoy Stadium and Shea High School. The design, the agency said, reflects that period's Arts Deco style, particularly in support pillars that resemble the eagles on top of the Pawtucket City Hall tower.
The existing bridge, which carries Route 95 across the river, is really two separate structures built close together, one carrying northbound traffic and the other southbound. They have rusted so much that the DOT has had to close one entrance ramp, put braces under part of the bridge and impose an 18-ton weight limit, effectively banning large trucks.
David Fish, the DOT's managing engineer for bridge design, said that in addition to replacing the existing structures, the agency is staying with plans to build what amounts to a third bridge, in part to avoid disrupting traffic on Route 95.
That third structure will be built immediately south of the existing structures. Fish said it will be two lanes wide to better accommodate northbound traffic entering and leaving the highway. The existing bridge has only one lane for that, with traffic entering from the George Street entrance on one riverbank and leaving by the School Street exit on the other. That entrance ramp is closed because of the bridge's condition. The exit remains open, with temporary supports helping to hold up that edge of the bridge.
With an estimated 162,000 vehicles crossing the river each day, officials have said that interrupting interstate traffic is unacceptable. During construction, the DOT plans to avoid that by building the third structure first, shifting traffic to it while replacing one of the existing structures, and then shifting traffic again to replace the final one.
The agency plans "to keep three lanes of 95 traffic in each direction open at all times," Fish said.
He said that the project will be paid for with a combination of federal and state money, with 80 percent coming from the federal highway program and the other 20 percent borrowed under a state transportation bond issue. Fish said that when work on three nearby overpasses, at Pine, Garden and George streets, is added to the cost of the new bridge, the estimated total is $100 million.
The bridge's designers include Commonwealth Engineers Inc., Newport Collaborative Architects, Gaskell Associates and Abernathy Lighting Design Inc.
