The Richmond Bridge 29 project will replace the existing eight-span bridge. (ECI and VTrans photo)

The Richmond Bridge 29 project will replace the existing eight-span bridge, which is in good to poor condition, with a new two-span off-alignment bridge that matches the width of the corridor.

ECI Engineers Construction Inc. of Williston, Vt., is the lead contractor on the project, which has a budget of $20.4 million and is federally funded.

The bridge is located in the town of Richmond in Chittenden County on U.S. Route 2 over Interstate 89. It is located approximately 1.9 mi. east of the junction with VT Route 117.

According to VTrans, "The existing structure is an eight-span cast-in-place deck on rolled beams constructed in 1964. It is approximately 497 ft. in length and 35 ft. wide. The bridge substructure is in ‘poor' condition while the deck and superstructure are in ‘good' and ‘fair' condition, respectively. VTrans bridge inspectors have observed that the bridge joints are in poor condition and are allowing water to run onto the bearings and pier caps. As a result, the bearings have heavy rust scale and section loss and the pier columns and caps have extensive deterioration. The piers have large areas of spalled concrete with exposed reinforcing steel."

ECI has divided the bridge construction project into three annual segments.

"Year one includes all substructure and stormwater infrastructure work," said Phil Foerster, ECI superintendent. "Year two will be the erection of bridge steel, pouring of the new deck and shifting traffic onto the new alignment. Year three will be removal of the old structure.

"So far this year ECI has installed various forms of excavation support, such as sheet piling, tiebacks and shotcrete to retain existing road infrastructure," he added. "ECI has installed 12 H Piles bearing on ledge support Abutment 1 and opened up the excavation in the median of the interstate for the installation of the bridge pier footing."

Foerster also detailed the quantities of materials used so far.

"We currently moved in 8,000 cubic yards of fill material for the new road embankment," he said. "We tied 90,000 pounds of reinforcing steel, poured 275 cubic yards of concrete, and installed 700 linear feet of sheeting and tiebacks to retain an active roadway. Local stormwater infrastructure has been installed."

When asked what impact the company's work will have on bridge traffic, Foerster said, "The current bridge is deteriorating rapidly but maintaining two-way traffic. The current traffic is only impacted by daily single-lane closures. The bridge crosses over 1-89 on which traffic is reduced to daily single-lane traffic. Year two and three will see the use of crossover to shift all traffic to one side of the interstate while work is being done on the opposite bridge spans."

Construction equipment used by ECI on the Richmond bridge project includes a John Deere 544J loader, Volvo EX180C excavator, John Deere 550K crawler dozer; 2004 Ingersoll-Rand SD45D roller, 2019 Hamm roller, Link-Belt TCC 450 crawler crane with 20 ft. offset fly, and a 1984 Delmag D16-32 diesel pile hammer.

ECI began construction activities on the Richmond bridge on May 29, 2023, and the completion date for the project is set for Oct. 24, 2025. CEG

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