Route 8 bridge project a quick, but not simple job
For more than a week, people in 88,000 vehicles that travel Route 8/25 each day got a lesson in new bridge construction in a city named Bridgeport.
First, there was a traffic shift that had southbound traffic shifted to the northbound lanes. Then, there were days of demolition where heavy equipment turned the 44-year-old Lindley Street and Capitol Avenue bridges into piles of rubble. Soon, there were two gaping holes in the highway where the bridges once stood.
Then, on Thursday, people started to see a different kind of bridge construction starting to emerge in Bridgeport when a huge, 16-axle flatbed truck carried segments of the pre-built, weathered-steel bridge along city streets to a construction site off Lindley Street.
It was the latest and most visible phase of a “design-bid-build’’ project that has compressed what is normally a two-year construction period into a matter of months, and replaced seven separate bridge spans with just two.
Although the state Department of Transportation has used the accelerated bridge construction method — where the bridge is built off-site and then dropped into place with large cranes — a few times, this is the first time the bidder helped design the project.
A new approach
“The ‘design-bid-build’ is a contract where the DOT draws up only partial plans, and asks bidders to show us how they would accomplish what we need,’’ said Scott Adkins, the project manager. “We would choose the best value for the contract winner.’’
Where the state would normally put final plans out to bid and ask for a price on that specific scope of work, the plans for the Route 8/25 bridge replacement were only 60 percent complete when the job was put out to bid.
“We actually started construction without final plans,’’ Adkins said. “We began last May, and didn’t have the final plans until December.’’
By overlapping the designing and building phases and choosing a team to work cooperatively, the impact and disruption to traffic are reduced.
Thursday looked more like a military siege than a work zone, but that is because of the compressed time frame. There were 23 State Police troopers and several Bridgeport police officers directing traffic and setting up detours around the work zone. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Crane Towers Over Downtown Stamford's Future Atlantic Station Development
STAMFORD, Conn. — Work is well underway on Atlantic Station, two towers under construction at the corner of Atlantic Street and Tresser Boulevard.
The development will contain 40,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 650 apartments and parking for more than 800 cars, according to the developer.
A crane was seen towering over the site Friday, which sits across from NBC Universal's Stamford Media Center — the former Rich Forum. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
I-84 engineers zero in on capping highway at ground level
Engineers working on a project to redesign Interstate 84 through much of Hartford have taken two project models off the table — a tunnel and an elevated highway.
Instead, Department of Transportation engineers will focus on a ground-level design with "capping" that would enable vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic to pass over the interstate.
"We're really starting to add the fine details," said Michael Morehouse, an engineer with the firm Fitzgerald & Halliday Inc.
Many of the options presented during a forum on the project Tuesday included lowering the highway and capping them with a roughly 20-foot-tall structure that would limit air and noise pollution to surrounding neighborhoods, as well as provide an overhead path from one side of the highway to the other.
Options presented included capping various portions of the highway after the existing neighboring roads have been lowered to ground level.
Stretches of capping, starting from roughly Broad Street, ranged from about 950 feet to about 3,000 feet, with costs ranging from $325 million to $1.65 billion.
Support from the Public Advisory Committee, which includes members from local and regional authorities, major employers, neighborhood groups, planning experts, and advocacy groups, dwindled as the capping options were extended further west. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
New Haven hopes Long Wharf makeover will draw more people to waterfront
NEW HAVEN >> The Long Wharf area is about to get a makeover the city hopes will attract more people to the waterfront and reconnect it with its maritime heritage.
Multiple infrastructure projects are quickly coming together, including a two-way cycle track and pedestrian safety improvements, as well as better accommodations for the popular food trucks with additional parking for patrons. Construction work is under way for portions of the Vision Trail and the terminus of the Farmington Canal Trail at Canal Dock Road, where the original short-lived mid-19th century transportation network reached New Haven Harbor.And finally, construction of the $18 million Canal Dock Boathouse, will start in mid-July, an idea that was first broached in 1997 as mitigation for the razing of the George Adee Memorial Boathouse on Forbes Avenue to make way for an expanded Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge. Tens of thousands of vehicles speed past the harbor on Long Wharf Drive on Interstate 95 daily, and while it is a destination for some, New Haven wants to boost that. “This is all part of our narrative to activate our waterfront and connect residents to this great natural treasure we have,” said City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, whose department is designing the cycle track, also known as a protected bike lane, and other improvements along Long Wharf Drive.
It is one of several city departments that have had a close partnership for almost two decades now with the state Department of Transportation on the boathouse, the Farmington Canal Trail and the massive Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge and highway interchange project. “New Haven is a coastal city,” Zinn said. “From Mayor Toni Harp on down, we want people to have active lifestyles and come down here.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE