Above: A state project to replace the River Street bridge, shown here crossing a rain-swollen Sudbury River in 2010, starts this week
Several of you have inquired about road signs near the intersection of Cordaville and Southville Roads announcing a new construction project. I asked DPW Superintendent Karen Galligan what it’s all about, and she tells me it’s the start of a bridge project that’s expected to continue for the next two years.
The bridge in question is the River Street bridge (Route 85) that crosses the Sudbury River just south of the Southborough Commuter Rail station. Back in 2010, the state said the bridge was structurally deficient and needed to be replaced. Construction is expected to take about two years, but the state says they will be able to maintain two lanes of traffic throughout the project. The bridge handles approximately 7,800 vehicles every day.
The new bridge will be wider than the existing one, with two 12-foot travel lanes, wider shoulders in both directions, and a sidewalk on the west side. The work is expected to cost more than $3.3M.
Galligan said the project will start on Friday with the installation of supports for new utility poles.
I cannot believe that it will take 2 years to complete a small, 2 lane bridge project.
Bridges are much more complex structures than they may seem to those that just drive over them. Given that they are doing a complete re-build on a very heavily traveled route without eliminating any lanes during construction, 2 years sounds about right. A big part if it is building temporary structures for re-routing traffic and then tearing those down. They’ll essentially be building and tearing down a bridge twice.