Construction workers are preparing to soon construct Pier One, the seventh and final pier of the $62.5 million General John Stark Memorial Bridge, which will link the two Connecticut River towns of Hinsdale, N.H., and Brattleboro, Vt.
It is hoped that the bridge, designed to replace two, 100-year-old truss bridges currently linking Hinsdale and Brattleboro, will be open for traffic in the fall of 2024, with the finishing touches slated for the following spring.
The Brattleboro Reformer reported Dec. 26 that while the last of the girders for the new bridge sit by the side of N.H. Highway 9 in the nearby town of Keene, for the seventh pier to be constructed and to cure, more than two dozen employees of Reed & Reed Construction have been laying reinforced concrete panels cast by J. P. Carrara & Sons in Middlebury, N.H., on top of the girders that have been installed over six of the eight spans, starting on the Hinsdale side.
Reed & Reed is based in Woolwich, Maine.
Mark Moran, resident engineer and senior contract administrator of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) Construction Bureau, told the Reformer that once the 4.5-in.-thick deck panels are installed across the entire 1,800 ft. bridge span, stainless steel rebar will be installed, followed by the pouring of an additional 5 in. of concrete. After that has cured, a membrane will be applied before being topped by 2.5 in. of asphalt, making it ready for striping.
He added that the Connecticut River bridge project calls for more than 1,000 panels, made up of approximately 12,000 cu. meters of concrete, and about 6 million lbs. of structural steel. Rebar alone, Moran noted, is well over 1 million lbs.
The 10 girders by the side of the road in Keene, fabricated by Casco Bay Steel Structures in South Portland, Maine, will need to be installed once Pier One is ready, according to Moran, with all the necessary stringers and other connectors holding everything together.
"There's a series of what we call pork chop girders that sit on the piers themselves, and then there's a series of slender girders that drop in between those pork chop girders," he explained.
Plans Call for Rehab to Current Pair of Bridges
Eighty percent of the Stark Memorial Bridge's cost is coming from the federal government, the Brattleboro news source reported. The remainder of the cost is split between New Hampshire and Vermont, with the Granite State contributing 85 percent of the funds because of its "ownership" of the river to the high-water mark in Vermont.
Another $8 million has been set aside to rehabilitate the old Charles Dana and Anna Marsh bridges across Hinsdale Island that currently connect the two towns as well as clean up the island for strictly pedestrian use.
There have been some delays in the project, which Moran attributed to a multitude of issues — one of which is staffing.
"There's a lack of a young labor force and reduced institutional knowledge with older folks retiring," he said.
Additionally, Moran cited the serious flooding last July that washed out a section of road in Winchester, N.H., the only delivery route for the girders from Maine, for disrupting the building effort.
On the Vermont side of the project, right-of-way issues concerning outdated fuel tanks owned by Barrows and Fisher Oil needed to be removed and the demolition of a concrete pad also slowed the project. Only recently was the fuel company able to complete the installation of several new tanks just north of the old pad.
"We are anticipating having traffic on the bridge by the fall of 2024 with the finishing touches done by the following spring," said Moran.
On average, the traffic count on the two existing bridges is 8,900 vehicles per day or 3.2 million annually.
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