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IN-PROGRESS: "Iway" 195 Relocation/Wash. Bridge

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EPBOY Whistle-Stop

EPBOY

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I just was down at the river having lunch (had to get out of the office today). I noticed there are cranes on either side of the river outside the Hurricane Barrier. Is our bridge finally rising?

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They must be preparing for the arrival of the bridge in 2006.

According to the PROJO artical from last January, it's gonna come floating up the bay!

"James R. Caroselli, the Rhode Island DOT's chief civil engineer, said the steel parts National Eastern is making will be trucked to Quonset Point, North Kingstown, in early 2006, and assembled into the bridge, probably on a pair of barges linked together.

Then, with the bridge on top, the barges will be towed up Narragansett Bay to Providence for the installation.

It should be quite a show. "You'll look out your window and see a bridge floating past your house"

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Frankie811 City

Frankie811

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I just was down at the river having lunch (had to get out of the office today). I noticed there are cranes on either side of the river outside the Hurricane Barrier. Is our bridge finally rising?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, but you must remember that they are also doing work down there for the Narragansett Bay Commission's big dig project, so it might get a little crowded down there :o

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ruchele Hamlet

ruchele

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Route 195 Relocation Project

Washington Bridge Linear Park

WashingtonBridge001.jpeg

WashingtonBridge002.jpeg

WashingtonBridge005.jpeg

WashingtonBridge006.jpeg

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I rode the East Bay Bike Path last weekend- On the bulletin boards along the path, there were arial shots of what the new "Linear park" on the Washington Bridge is supposed to look like.

Frankly, in those shots, it looked much less grand than the pics above- more like just a one-lane wide car-free zone next to the 6 or so lanes of 195 traffic (that's what's right on the other side of the black fence you can see above). Yes, an improvement over the exisiting sidewalk, and yes, a great connection of the Bikepath into Providence, but still kind of bleak. I hope they plan for a lot of landscaping along it to provide some shade and mitigate the noise and stink of the traffic.

Anyone know if there are landscape designers involved in this project, and who?

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Recchia Town

Recchia

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I know the exact picture you're talking about ruchele (I used it at bike to work day last summer). I think they just left out a lot of detail in that rendering, whatever used to be on their website should still be the plan. As far as landscaping goes, they almost always have either a Landscape Architect as part of the contract, or they use their in-house Lanscape Architecture section. Not sure about landscaping on the bridge though...

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CtownMikey Burg

CtownMikey

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The drive of the future: Rerouting 195

The first visible signs of progress in Providence's biggest road project have appeared, eight years before the project is expected to be complete.

BY BRUCE LANDIS

Journal Staff Writer | August 10, 2004

195a.jpg

Journal photo / John Freidah

The first visible signs of progress in the gigantic effort to reroute Route 195 have appeared, eight years before the project is expected to be complete.

195b.gif

Changing lanes

The map and aerial photo, taken a few days ago, show where Route 195 and its intersection with Route 95 are being relocated in Providence.

The photo shows the Providence River running north and south in the center, with the East Side on the right and the Jewelry District and Davol Square on the left. Route 95 runs up the left side of the photo, with the existing Route 195 coming in from the right, looping northwest across the river and then down to its intersection with Route 95.

On the river from north to south are the existing Route 195 bridge, the Point Street Bridge, the marina on the east side of the river and the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier.

The map shows how the new Providence River Bridge will cross the river just south of the Hurricane Barrier. On the east shore, above Fox Point and the docks, the new section of the highway will extend east from the bridge to meet the existing Route 195 above India Point Park, headed east towards the Washington Bridge and East Providence.

There's no sign of the bridge itself yet, but the photo shows as whitish lines a number of reinforced concrete retaining walls being built to support the embankment for the new section of Route 195 east of the river.

On the west bank, the ramps connecting the bridge to Route 95 will pass north of the big round tanks at the bottom center of the photo.

The Russian submarine on exhibit is barely visible docked at Collier Point, on the west bank of the river near the tanks at the bottom, center of the photo.

PROVIDENCE -- The skeleton of the new section of Route 195 is appearing aboveground on both sides of the Providence River, offering a rough outline of the Department of Transportation's massive construction project moving the highway and its intersection with Route 95 to the south.

On the river itself, there's no sign yet of the centerpiece of the project, a new bridge with a 400-foot-wide arch that will be built just south of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier.

Even on land, a great deal of the work that has been done remains invisible, consisting of 100-foot-plus, steel-reinforced concrete piles driven down to bedrock to hold up bridge and highway structures.

But while it doesn't look much like a highway yet, an outline of the project is visible on both sides of the river, although it's easier to make out from some directions than others.

So far, said James R. Caroselli, the DOT's chief civil engineer, the project is moving along "very well." With an estimated cost of around $450 million, the project won't be finished until around 2012, when the new highway and bridge are built and the existing bridges and embankments removed.

Heading west into Providence from East Providence, Route 195 crosses the Washington Bridge over the Seekonk River into the city's East Side. Partway to the Providence River, it swings northwest, then crosses the river north of Point Street and the hurricane barrier, and curves southwest to meet Route 95.

The project will replace that half-loop with a relatively straight section of highway leading to the Providence River at Fox Point, just below the hurricane barrier, and the bridge that will cross the river, landing just below the power plant on the west bank.

The new intersection is designed to be easier to drive through and safer.

Without the bridge, it's harder to make out the overall shape of the project from many directions. The easiest way to see the project's future is to look at it from its ends.

From the west, looking from the northbound lanes of Route 95 below the existing Route 195 exit, a break in the gas tanks to the right, just past a big green tank, offers a clear view down the right-of-way toward the hurricane barrier and the Providence River.

There, the most obvious sign of the project's eventual location has been unchanged for months. That is an elongated, mostly flat-topped mound of fill, with some grass growing on top. That is where the ramps will fan out from the new bridge where it comes ashore just to the right, or the south, of the hurricane barrier.

That dirt pile headed toward Route 95 is about 40 feet high, Caroselli said, and was put there to "pre-load" -- squash, that is -- the silty peat underneath. That's so it won't settle later, when the highway ramps are built on top. The weight of fill, he said, has forced the ground down by about two feet.

On the east end of the project, in the Fox Point section, some of the vertical, concrete retaining walls are visible, along with piles of fill that stick up above the highway. They point the way to where the bridge will be built.

To see the project's outline from the east, a good vantage point is at the north end of the pedestrian bridge across Route 195 to India Point Park. That footbridge starts at George M. Cohan Boulevard, a local street that runs next to but above Route 195 near Tockwotten Home and Gregorian Elementary School.

From there, looking west across Route 195 toward the river and Rhode Island Hospital, Route 195's future path is marked by concrete retaining walls that will support the embankment under the new section of highway. The dirt piles will be used for fill, and the graffiti decorating the retaining walls will end up mostly underground, Caroselli said.

For a bulldozer's-eye view of the retaining walls at the east end of the project, drive south on Gano Street, the local street on the Providence bank of the Seekonk River, pass under 195, turn right on India Street and drive the length of India Point Park toward the river.

The first signs of the new bridge will appear shortly, Caroselli said, in the form of a temporary structure built to support equipment or hold up the permanent structure while it is being built.

Caroselli said the temporary work in the Providence River will be structures to support the machinery that will drill eight-foot-wide holes into the river bottom, down to and into the rock beneath for perhaps 20 feet.

A steel drill casing encloses the hole as it's drilled, and will be filled with steel reinforcement and concrete. Drivers passing through regularly will recall similar material -- enormous sections of pipe you could walk through, big green cylinders of reinforcing steel to go inside -- sitting on the Washington Bridge the winter before last, while construction crews there built the foundation for a new eastbound section of the bridge.

The only part of the project that is seriously behind schedule, Caroselli said, is the replacement of the Point Street overpass, which carries that local road across Route 95. Delayed by unexpected sub-soil conditions that forced some redesigning, that bridge is about a year behind schedule, he said.

A major target of the 195 relocation project is improved highway safety. The existing junction of 195 with 95 is relatively inhospitable to drivers, with entrance and exit ramps on the left and right, and relatively sharp curves.

One of the project's safety goals is to eliminate "weaves," where drivers who enter on one side of the highway must exit shortly afterward on the other side by shifting across lanes in a hurry.

For example, driving westbound on Route 195 from East Providence and heading for Rhode Island Hospital now involves entering Route 95 southbound on its left side, then crossing the whole highway to exit from the right lane.

The new intersection is supposed to eliminate that kind of situation, which is at best awkward and at worst traumatic, while also replacing the relatively tight turns of the ramps' curves with wider curves and better visibility.

For a look at how things are supposed to appear at the project's conclusion, the DOT has animated views of the drive through the new intersection from various directions on its Web site.

The designs show smooth curves that can be negotiated easily. For example, one animation depicts a trip through the intersection from the East Side to the new exit for Rhode Island Hospital with a single lane change.

From The Providence Journal

Does anyone else have any concern for 195 to be placed before the hurricane barrier? I just remember those bridges down near new orleans. They aren't bridges anymore..

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rhuck Unincorporated Area

rhuck

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Does anyone else have any concern for 195 to be placed before the hurricane barrier? I just remember those bridges down near new orleans. They aren't bridges anymore..

I believe the bridge will be higher than the barrier, so if there was ever a swell that took out the bridge, it would have taken out the barrier as well.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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The bridge is the same height as the hurricane barrier. The hurricane barrier is coupled with leavees on land that would block the storm surge in a hurricane, and the highway will actually sit on top of these levees. The bridges that were destroyed in the gulf were mostly less than 10 feet above the mean high tide. The storm surge of 20+ feet is what destroyed these low slung bridges. The Providence River Bridge will be considerably higher, and hopefully we'll never see storm surge of that magnitude here.

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Thom Unincorporated Area

Thom

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The bridge is the same height as the hurricane barrier. The hurricane barrier is coupled with leavees on land that would block the storm surge in a hurricane, and the highway will actually sit on top of these levees. The bridges that were destroyed in the gulf were mostly less than 10 feet above the mean high tide. The storm surge of 20+ feet is what destroyed these low slung bridges. The Providence River Bridge will be considerably higher, and hopefully we'll never see storm surge of that magnitude here.

The bridge actually had to meet Coast Guard standards and the bottom of the girders had to be above the height of the top of the hurricane gates. My memory is that the bottom of the bridge is at elevation 22 the top of the gates is around 20. Any tidal surge will go under the bridge.

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Cotuit Megalopolis

Cotuit

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Any tidal surge will go under the bridge.

And if it were to go over the bridge we'd have much bigger problems to worry about then losing the bridge. :ph34r:

That sounds like the opening line to one of those B-movie disaster films... :D

Yes, right after writing that I read an article about NYC preparing for a 20 foot surge.

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chaz200 Unincorporated Area

chaz200

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What I don't like is that RIDOT doesn't do any updates on the project or show progress on their website. All their material is the same thing from years ago before the first building was torn down. And now they brand it. Well fine but that doesn't tell me what's going on.

I drive down Allens Avenue every day and right past the Point Street overpass (work in Coro) so I see progress but it is frustrating not to be able to find any information.

Does anyone know where to find information, especially if they are on schedule and on budget?

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Garris Town

Garris

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Does anyone know where to find information, especially if they are on schedule and on budget?

I would e-mail them and ask, and while doing so, suggest they update the website. Unless the Projo or PBN have an article update, we never know what's happening.

- Garris

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