PORTLAND, Maine — There is good and bad news for people who travel along Interstate 295 between Portland and Falmouth.
Good news: The Maine Department of Transportation and its construction partners will install a brand new bridge overpass in late April that they say will only impact motorists for 64 hours.
Bad news: No one traveling north or south on the highway near exit 8 or on Veranda Street below the overpass will be able to get through for the entirety of those 64 hours. Planners set a closing time of 7 p.m. April 22 and a reopening time of 11 a.m. April 25.
Tim Cote, project manager with HNTB Corporation, shared the clever plan being used for the bridge replacement. If the project used traditional methods commonly used to replace worn infrastructure, crews would have had to build a temporary bridge next to the existing one, then painstakingly demolish and rebuild over months or years, allowing traffic to move through whatever lane or lanes remain open as the project moves along.
Instead, permanent bridge replacement pieces are being fabricated on the ground, perpendicular to the existing structure. Once they're ready and the target time arrives, massive automated crawlers — similar to the machines that move space shuttles to launch pads — will carry the spans into position and raise them into place.
"Recognizing the travel impact of doing conventional construction and the years of delay that would have happened with a temporary bridge, use of self-propelled modular transporters was a way to use that money more wisely."
Cote and DOT spokesperson Paul Merrill said the project would cost around $21 million once completed.
The pair implored drivers who plan to travel through the area that weekend use Interstate 95.
Cote joked people should treat it like a nor'easter, if they don't need to be on the road. Buy their essentials ahead of time, and enjoy their weekend at home. Merrill agreed the total shutdown is the best option available.
"I look at it as ripping off the Band-Aid by doing it this way," he said. "We're having the one – for lack of a better term – painful headache of a travel weekend in the spring, and the major construction work will be buttoned up shortly thereafter."
There will be a live virtual public meeting about the project 6 p.m. April 6. The DOT established a website with details, renderings, and a 24/7 live stream of the construction site.
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