Date: Fri 26-Apr-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Church-Hill-railroad-bridge

Full Text:

Designers Fill In Details Of New Church Hill Rail Bridge

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Only a handful of people - mostly town officials - attended the public

informational meeting held in the high school auditorium last Thursday evening

on the state's plans for the replacement of the railroad bridge over Church

Hill Road.

The DOT representatives who attended the meeting - Tim Gaffey, the project

manager; Keith Hall, the bridge designer, and engineers Tony Wamuo and Mike

Marzi - brought a computer-generated photo of what the new $2.5 million bridge

will look like and preliminary drawings showing construction plans.

Mr Gaffey said the final bridge design must be approved by the Federal Highway

Administration because the project is being financed 80 percent by the federal

government and 20 percent by the state. No local funding is required.

The existing bridge, built about 1929, is a 35-foot, 6-inch long "through

girder" style bridge that carries one track of the Danbury Terminal Railroad

Company. The clearance underneath is only 12-feet, 7-inches, an impossible

squeeze for most tractor-trailer trucks. There were 24 reported instances of

trucks striking the bridge between 1993 and 1995, Mr Gaffey said.

The new through girder steel bridge also will carry only one track but it will

be higher with a vertical clearance underneath of at least 14-feet, 6-inches.

"Ideally, new bridges have 16 feet of clearance, but we are limited by the

existing rail," Mr Gaffey said. According to state law, trucks can be no more

than 13 feet, 6 inches high.

Mr Gaffey said that if everything proceeds as planned, the bridge design will

be completed in July, the project will go out to bid in December and the

construction will begin next spring.

During the construction period the existing bridge will be moved five feet to

the west (toward the flagpole) so that rail traffic can continue. A new

bridge, 102-feet long, will then will be built about 16 feet to the east

(toward Wire Road) on an angle between the abutments.

The bridge supports will be moved to create an opening that could eventually

accommodate four lanes of traffic, but Mr Gaffey stressed that there are no

plans at this time to widen the road. The roadbed under the bridge will remain

at 23 feet: two 10-foot traffic lanes and 1«-foot shoulders. The town plans to

install sewers in the middle of the road this summer.

Once the bridge is built, it may be turned over to the railroad for

maintenance. Because of this, Mr Hall said the DOT is planning a galvanized

and metalized bridge which will be coated with a clear sealer which ideally

will give 30 to 50 maintenance-free years and will be relatively easy to clean

if graffiti is applied.

Most of the construction work will be done between 9 pm and 6 am with

alternating traffic lanes open and a flagman on duty. However, the road will

have to be closed "for about an hour" when each of the two 90,000-lb beams are

lifted into place, Mr Gaffey said.

He said the DOT estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 vehicles go under the bridge

each day. "That's a lot of vehicles for a two-lane road," he said.

The existing stairs and crumbling brick wall adjacent to the bridge will be

removed and not replaced. Four utility poles will be relocated. About a dozen

trees will be removed. Replacement landscaping will include spring-flowering

shadblow sweetberry trees and burning bushes, which have red berries in the

fall.

The five-foot wide concrete sidewalk under the bridge will be replaced as far

to the east and west as required and the road under the bridge will be

resurfaced to a maximum of about 100-feet each way from the center of the

bridge. There also may be a fence along each end of the bridge to discourage

trespassers.