Bridge Construction over Main Street Delayed

As I have covered in previous posts, the area near the intersection of Main and Broad streets will be seeing a lot of construction soon: the water main replacement, repaving of Main Street (which will include adding bike lanes, finally), and the wholesale replacement of the section of Main Street that goes over Campus Drive, which connects Duke's East Campus to the rest of the university.

Soon-to-be replaced Campus Dr. Bridge

Today's Herald Sun reports that the bridge replacement has been pushed back almost a year and -- in even better news -- is now expected to last six months rather than twelve. This is unquestionably good news for then neighborhood, as it would minimize the ongoing disruption to the whole community without compromising infrastructure improvements that will need to be made.Read the whole article after the break.

DOT delays Main Street bridge work to 2013

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By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM – Construction of a replacement for the bridge that carries Main Street over Campus Drive at Duke University’s East Campus won’t begin until the late spring or early summer of 2013, a N.C. Department of Transportation engineer says.

The state agency still intends to hire the bridge’s builder this summer, and will give it time to order steel and other materials it will need to build the new span, said Wally Bowman, chief engineer for DOT’s Division 5.

Bowman added that DOT also intends to tell potential bidders that once construction starts, they’ll have to complete the bridge in 150 days or less.

In fact, DOT is so eager to minimize project-related disruptions along the Main Street corridor that it’s “willing to pay an extra premium” if contractors pledge a significant bettering of the 150-day, five-month timetable, Bowman told the City Council.

A bridge like this normally takes six months to a year, he added.

The idea of starting in 2013 and of establishing a short construction deadline were welcome news to council members who’ve fretted about the trouble a long closure of Main Street would cause residents.

Councilman Eugene Brown said he and other residents of nearby Trinity Park “feel a whole lot better than we did a couple months ago” when details about the construction schedule initially surfaced.

At first, city officials were expecting construction on the bridge replacement to begin this year. Main Street will be closed while the work unfolds, with DOT setting up detours to direct traffic onto the Durham Freeway between Chapel Hill Street and Swift Avenue.

The bridge isn’t the only work affecting the Main Street corridor. The city’s Water Management Department has begun replacing water lines there, and DOT intends to pave much of the street.

The paving is still going forward this year, regardless of the delay to the bridge, Bowman said.

As for the bridge, workers won’t start taking down the existing span until after Duke’s spring commencement in May 2013.

DOT has also pledged that there will be no work on Campus Drive – which passes under Main – during Duke’s freshman move-in that August, Bowman said.

The new bridge will be longer than the existing span. Because of the size of its steel components, workers will have to shave about a foot off the top of the “graffiti wall” abutment along Campus Drive, Bowman said.

Workers also will need to take down part of the stone wall that lines the edge of East Campus on Main Street.

They’ll stockpile the rocks, and a Duke-hired company will rebuild the wall once the bridge is complete.

DOT could have asked the bridge contractor to rebuild of the wall instead.

But Duke officials wanted control of the rebuild because they have someone “they’ve used over and over again and feel comfortable with,” Bowman said.

He added that DOT for legal reasons wouldn’t have been able to guarantee the bridge’s builder subcontracts with Duke’s preferred firm.

Bowman and city Transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen said DOT, city and Duke officials have met a couple times in recent weeks to make sure everyone’s on the same page about the plan.

In those meetings, DOT officials told their city and Duke counterparts “we’d see what we could do to tighten” the construction timetable, Bowman said.

Mayor Bill Bell joined Brown in praising the agency.

“I want to thank you for working together to put together a plan that hopefully will work for all involved,” Bell told Bowman.

Read more: The Herald-Sun - DOT delays Main Street bridge work to 2013