The Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) announced on Tuesday that the $20.8 million Veranda Street Bridge project is substantially complete.
The project began on March 1, 2021, and involved an innovative Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) technique designed to reduce long-term traffic disruptions.
According to MaineDOT, approximately 50,000 vehicles use the bridge daily on average.
Conventional bridge construction techniques would have involved building a temporary bridge and would have likely created daily traffic congestion on I-295 for up to four years, according to MaineDOT. The transportation department says the ABC method reduced significant traffic impacts to a period of 60 hours.
Work also had to be done reconfiguring the roadways underneath the bridge to improve traffic safety and enhance use by bicyclists and pedestrians.
The reconfigured Veranda Street consists of two 11-foot-wide vehicle travel lanes, two five-foot-wide bicycle lanes, a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the north side of the roadway, and a multi-use path on the south side that extends to the Martin's Point Bridge.
Nearly 1.5 acres of what was previously roadway and median can now be used for green space. The city of Portland will oversee further work along the waterfront.
The previous bridge was 61 years old and structurally deficient. The new bridge is designed to last 100 years.
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Source: SpectrumLocalNews.com
