Thomas Breen photo
I-91 Bridge #03094 between Exits 7 and 8.
Middeltown Avenue Bridge isn’t falling down. But steel reinforcement is on the way so it never gets to that point.
Unlike other spans named after war veterans or other local heroes, this one doesn’t have a name. The state Department of Transportation (DOT) calls it Bridge #03094.
But it serves an important purpose: carrying highway traffic between Exit 7 and Exit 8 on I‑91, above the railroad tracks.
State transit officials plan on rehabbing the 53-year-old bridge next year. The bridge, which was last rehabbed in 1999 and currently suffers from steel section loss and perforations to its structural support beam ends, will be repaired with steel plating and a new type of concrete that can bear over six times the pressure of traditional concrete, according to state DOT spokesperson Kevin Nursick.
“The bridge is very much safe,” Nursick stated in an email message. “But it is aging and needs work (as is typical), hence our project.”
The DOT expects the bridge rehab project to begin next April and to be completed in August 2020.
According to a bridge report released by the DOT on July 20, the department estimates the project to cost $7.8 million in total. The vast majority of that money, around $7.02 million, will come from the federal government. The remaining $780,000 will be paid by the state.
An Amtrak train rumbles by beneath the soon-to-be-rehabbed bridge.
A recent visit to the dusty, junkyard-strewn stretch of Middletown Avenue near the bridge revealed a relatively unremarkable stretch of highway. Flecks of brown speckle the steel support beams under the bridge, reflecting the metal’s steady corrosion after decades of weathering the elements beneath a steady stream of highway traffic.
A green tangle of shrubs, bushes and trees climbs down a short bank from the bridge to the railroad tracks, which rumbles to attention a few times an hour whenever an Amtrak train comes driving through.
The 5,411-square-foot lot on Middletown Ave. that the state DOT has put a temporary construction easement on to store materials for the bridge repair.
According to city land records, state DOT Commissioner James Redeker and state Director of Rights of Way Terrence Obey filed a certificate of condemnation on July 27 for a 5,411-square-foot junkyard lot adjacent to the bridge.
The certificate notes that the state put a temporary construction easement on the property for the purpose of storing materials and equipment over the course of the bridge rehabilitation project.
The certificate states that the easement will be extinguished upon competition of the project, and that the state will reset existing concrete blocks and grading and any other areas disturbed by construction.
The state DOT’s construction easement survey for property owned by 159 Middletown Avenue, LLC.
According to the state Superior Court’s database, the state paid $8,120 in damages for the temporary construction easement to the property’s owner, Roxanne Ackerson, through her holding company 159 Middletown Avenue LLC.
Ackerson is the co-director of Chuck and Eddie’s Used Auto Parts, a junkyard just a few hundred feet up the road at 190 Middletown Ave., along with Charles and James Arcangelo.
Ackerson and the Arcangelos did not respond to requests for comment on how the property was used before the easement. The plot itself is an empty, unpaved dirt lot separated from Middletown Avenue by a metal grate fence.
“We are performing steel repairs using steel plating and Ultra High Performance concrete (UHPC),” Nursick stated about the details of the planned rehabilitation for Bridge #03094, which was built in 1965. He said the repairs will also include concrete deck and substructure repairs, the placement of a new waterproofing membrane and bituminous overlay, and the replacement of the expansion bearings with elastomeric bearings.
“The use of UHPC to perform steel strengthening is a new technique studied by UConn,” he wrote. “The strengthening restores the capacity of the beam by creating a concrete column at the beam ends to transfer the load in the web of the beam to the bearings.”
He said UHPC can have compressive strengths nearing 29 thousand pounds per square inch (psi). He said traditional concrete can bear only around four thousand psi.
Nursick said the project could result in some lane closures. The department will have more details on the expected impact to daily use of the bridge when a construction plan is in place.