Last month, the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) awarded a $153 million contract to rehabilitate the bridges on the Waterbury Mixmaster, the name given to the S.R. 8/I-84 interchange.
Walsh Construction Company, which beat out five other bidders, will begin in May to overhaul 10 bridges that weave over, duck under and crisscross one another. The renovations will take place just a few miles from the ongoing $298 million project to widen a section of I-84 east of Waterbury, making the commute through the city expectedly more difficult.
The project will require Walsh Construction to build three temporary bridges, two spanning the Naugatuck River and one crossing Freight Street, to divert traffic off the northbound side of S.R. 8. The route’s concrete deck, in the worst shape of the 10 Mixmaster bridges, needs to be completely replaced.
In the project description, CDOT inventoried what they called the Mixmaster bridges’ “poor condition”: deteriorating decks, bearings and joints, section loss in girders and cracking in critical, non-redundant structures. Walsh Construction will repair the concrete decks and resurface them with a waterproof membrane, reinforce their concrete piers, swap out the existing metal bridge rails with a concrete parapet and install new overhead signage.
The Mixmaster rehabilitation project is expected to last until 2021. The renovations are intended to extend the lifespan of the 52-year-old bridges by 25 years.
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Source: Hartford Courant
