Allan Appel Photo
The current two-week closure of the 25-year-old Chapel Street bridge that spans the Mill River is a foretaste: Later this summer and into the fall two more bouts of closures — each at least twice as long if not more — are in store.
Here’s the payoff: All the preventive repair work combined with a new paint job could make the span last 20 more years.
That’s the word from City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, who explained the current closure is a response to the regular biannual inspection reports done by the state of Connecticut’s Department of Transportation bridge safety group.
The inspections highlighted corrosion that kept popping up, Zinn said. The current work addresses that problem through preventive maintenance, along with replacing some electrical and mechanical elements.
“It’s what you’d expect from a bridge built 25 years ago, when you’re in a salt water environment that’s very harsh on steel,” Zinn said.
The city will next replace a plastic and aggregate mixture that constitutes the filling of the deck. Zinn said that after the winter his staff noticed the deck deteriorating faster than expected. All that fill will be blasted away and replaced with more durable concrete, then covered by a lightweight polymer overlay.
The deck replacement phase, which is in the last stages of being bid, should require about four to six weeks of closure, Zinn estimated. The work will commence in the middle or end of June.
Finally, in late summer, expect about eight weeks of closing as the bridge gets painted. Zinn said the bridge needs to be painted in the open position and the work done within a contained over-structure to blow away the current paint, so it’s a big project. Fortunately the bridge, built in 1992, has non-lead paint, so among the many plans Zinn has to work out — including coordinating waterway passage with the Coast Guard throughout the various closures — lead flakes blowing about and causing pollution is not one of them.
The entire project is estimated to cost $5 million. The city will be hiring all the contractors. Once those contracts are made, the state-administered Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program (LOTCIP) and the state DOT’s Local Bridge Program will provide grants to cover most of the cost. LOTCIP is slated to cover $3 million. The city and the Local Bridge Program will split the balance of $2 million, of which the city will contribute $1 million.
“We’re looking to have 20 more years through this preventative work,” Zinn said.
The city has two other movable bridges it takes care of, Ferry Street and Grand Avenue. Zinn said his department is approaching the final design of the long-awaited re-do of the Grand Avenue bridge, which was built in 1895 and rehabbed in the 1980s. That work will likely not commence until Chapel Street is complete.
“Of our three movable bridges, we want two of them in working condition,” Zinn added.