Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, an extradosed design, opens in Connecticut

The first extradosed designed bridge in the United States, the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven, Connecticut, was opened to traffic on September 28.

An extradosed bridge is a hybrid of a cable-stayed and box girder structure. It allows the structure to accommodate longer spans than a girder bridge while using shorter towers than a conventional cable-stayed bridge. The project is of major importance for Connecticut as well as the US in general.

The bridge has five lanes and two full shoulders in both the northbound and southbound directions, the new bridge has significantly improved capacity.  The first phase of work started in 200 and was for the northbound side of the bridge, which opened to vehicles in 2012.  Construction on the second phase, the southbound side, began immediately after.

Completion of the new bridge – on time and under budget - was celebrated during a dedication ceremony on September 19. When the southbound side of the bridge was opened to traffic on September 28, just under 10,000 people walked over the structure.  

The opening marks a major milestone for the I-95 New Haven Harbor Crossing Corridor Improvement Program, according to 2782 WSP-2693 Parsons Brinckerhoff which serves as programme manager.

The new bridge, a 1.4km 10-lane crossing of the Quinnipiac River, replaces the existing Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, known locally as the Q-Bridge that was built in 1958. It was designed to carry 40,000 vehicles daily but it now carries more than 120,000 vehicles per day.

The new bridge, costing around US$554 million will eventually carry 140,000 vehicles daily and is designed to last 100 years. It is also the centrepiece of a $2 billion megaproject, the I-95 New Haven Harbor Crossing Corridor Improvement Programme, to reconstruct and widen 21 km of I-95 between the towns of West Haven and Branford. Since 1999, WSP-Parsons Brinckerhoff has managed the programme for the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

“We are honoured to be CTDOT’s partner in the management of this project, which will dramatically improve traffic flow in the critical I-95 corridor,” said Anthony Moretti, WSP-Parsons Brinckerhoff’s Connecticut area manager. “We look forward to continuing to support CTDOT to complete additional improvements to the I-95 corridor.”

In addition to the new bridge, the I-95 New Haven Harbor Crossing Corridor Improvement Programme includes improvements to 11.5km of the I-95 highway, reconstruction of the I-95/I-91/Route 34 interchange and the State Street commuter rail station, which was completed in 2000.

The I-95 programme, the largest and most comprehensive multimodal transportation programme in Connecticut’s history, is scheduled for completion in fall of 2016.