WESTFIELD – Governor Deval Patrick will officiate a dedication ceremony for the bridge project on Friday at 2:30 p.m.
Cake will be served.
City residents will take the cake, but will celebrate decades of desire and effort to open a second bridge, to clear traffic congestion along the Elm, North Elm streets corridor. There is historical data dating back to the 1930s indicating that city officials identified a second bridge as a priority.
The Springfield Daily News published an article on Oct.3, 1956 pertaining to a motion by City Councilor Robert LaForge to form a committee to look into the possibility of the construction of a new bridge over the Westfield River.
Mayor George A. Varelas and former City Councilor Barbara Russell pushed that same agenda in the late 1980s, with Varelas obtaining a commitment from Gov. Michael Dukakis for the bridge project in the early 1990’s. City Engineer Mark Cressotti said that original commitment was for construction of a sister bridge right next to the existing span.
Mayor Richard K. Sullivan adjusted the location of the second bridge to where it is now located during his initial term in office in 1994. The city had an agreement with the state to fund the engineering work and the environmental impact report, a process that was protracted, as the requirements for both the design effort and the environmental studies were increased.
“The environmental impact study took two years alone,” Cressotti said Friday. “The design effort, which began in 1994, spanned to 2006 – 12 years. It is a complex project, to be sure.”
The original scope of the project encompassed four bridge elements. The first two elements were the construction of a new bridge and the raising of the CSX viaduct. However, the CSX element lagged behind. The state and contractor adapted to the delay in raising the railroad bridge by lowering the Union Avenue roadbed to allow truck passage until the CSX viaduct was rebuilt at a higher elevation, an effort that including raising miles of track on either side of the viaduct.
The third element of the plan called for the “old” bridge to be closed and rebuilt while two-way traffic passed over the new span.
The fourth element was the reconstruction of the Pochassic Street, or Drug Store Hill, bridge. That element was dropped because the engineering work lagged behind the rest of the project, and as a means of controlling the project cost.
“The initial estimate of the project was $24 million for a two year project,” Cressotti said.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation bid the project during the summer of 2006 and accepted the $57 million proposal submitted by J.F. White Contracting of Framingham in January 2007. A ground breaking ceremony, presided over by Gov. Patrick and Mayor Sullivan, was conducted that spring and work began on the new bridge construction element.
The project was delayed during reconstruction of the old bridge when greater structural damage than anticipated was found as the deck was removed. The Federal Department of Transportation also issued new design requirements, which added to that delay as the “gusset plates” which hold the steal beam structure in place had to be removed and retrofitted with a much more robust system. The gusset plates had to be special ordered and the fabrication timeline stalled work.
The project also involved installation of an entire new underground infrastructure, including water, gas and communication lines.
“The state’s portion of the project was about $60 million, but there is another $20 million in outside work, the CSX bridge element, work done by Verizon to move their facilities, all of the activity associated with the project, but not part of the DOT contract,” Cressotti said.
“So the total project is about $80 million.”
