By Cynthia Koons
A contract was awarded on Christmas Eve to two companies that will replace the entire roadway of the Whitestone Bridge, the MTA said this week.
This comes one week after the completion of the Throgs Neck Bridge road replacement and six weeks after the end of a $39 million aerodyanamics project on the Whitestone Bridge.
“The investment we are making in upgrading the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge is a vital part of our capital program work to renew our infrastructure,” MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said in a statement. “This work will ensure that the bridge will continue its long and distinguished role as a vital link in our regional transportation system.”
The first part of the project entailed replacing the trusses, which comprise the 15-foot-high steel grid that runs along the edges of the bridge. They were added in 1946 to stiffen the bridge, and recently were deemed cumbersome and weighty.
Construction on the trusses began last year and was officially completed in November.
“It lightened the structure, which adds service life, and it is more effective in the wind,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Frank Pascual said. The construction took more than 39 tons of weight off the bridge, according to MTA estimates. The MTA oversees bridges and tunnels.
Now that the truss work is complete, he said, the MTA will begin a construction project that will replace the roadway along the entire bridge. Pascual said Perini and O&G, of Peekskill, N.Y., are working together to construct the $136.7 million roadway.
The bridge will not be closed during the road replacement, Pascal said. Instead a flexible median barrier will allow for three lanes of traffic on the peak side of the roadway and two lanes of traffic on the off-peak side.
“Work where we replaced the (trusses) this past year, we did that while the bridge is in operation,” Pascal said. That construction was done from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. during what the MTA considers off-peak hours.
The replacement of the Throgs Neck Bridge roadway was done without any bridge closures, Pascual said. That project, a $150 million venture, was essentially completed last week, he said.
These projects are part of a $17 billion MTA capital program to modernize the city’s bridges and tunnels. The Whitestone Bridge was built in 23 months and opened the day before the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
The bridge spans the East River from the Bronx communities of Unionport to the Queens neighborhoods of Whitestone and Malba.
The MTA estimates that 140,000 drivers cross the bridge daily.
Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
