PORTLAND - The Maine Department of Transportation reopened Route 1/Veranda Street under the Veranda Street Bridge in Portland at 2:00 p.m. today. The road had been closed for a full week to accommodate the rapid replacement of the Veranda Street Bridge on I-295 between Exits 9 and 10. The interstate was closed to traffic at 7:00 p.m. on Friday and reopened at 7:00 a.m. today four hours ahead of schedule.
MaineDOT used an innovative Accelerate Bridge Construction (ABC) technique designed to reduce long-term traffic disruptions. Conventional bridge construction techniques (involving the construction of a temporary bridge) would have likely created traffic congestion for three or four years. This ABC method compressed significant traffic impacts to a period of 60 hours.
"The safe and successful completion of this part of the Veranda Street Bridge replacement project is the result of years of planning, months of construction, and 60 hours of intense on-site work to demolish the old bridge and slide the new spans into place," said MaineDOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note. "We are proud of the work our MaineDOT team did with our contracting partners from Cianbro, Shaw Brothers, HNTB, and others. We are also grateful for the support from our customers the members of the traveling public. What we all accomplished together this weekend was not only an amazing feat of engineering but also a remarkable example of great teamwork."
This project also involves reconfiguring Route 1/Veranda Street under the interstate bridge. Modern signalized intersections at the end of the Exit 9 ramps will improve safety for all users. Once complete, the reconfigured Veranda Street will consist 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. This project will convert nearly 1.5 acres of roadway and median into green space.
More work on this project will continue in the coming months. This work will involve some overnight lane closures. MaineDOT is also planning another paving operation in October. Parts of the interstate roadway on either side of the new bridge will likely settle as much as one inch throughout the next several months. This is normal and expected. All work is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2022.
HNTB Corporation of South Portland is the design firm for this project. Cianbro of Pittsfield is the prime contractor. Shaw Brothers Construction of Gorham performed the earthwork and bridge demolition.
The construction contract for this project is approximately $18.1 million. The total project cost (including engineering and design work) is approximately $20.8 million.