Project engineers say they aim to finish a new drawbridge connecting Grand Isle and North Hero next June, though it’s likely construction will continue into 2023.
Work on and around the drawbridge, a critical link on the Lake Champlain islands, began in 2018. The old drawbridge was demolished in 2019, and a temporary span built next to it accommodates a mix of one- and two-lane vehicle traffic.
Crews are continuing to clean up soil contaminants — lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexavalent chromium — that were detected on the site in 2019, said Jonathan Griffin, the project manager for the state Agency of Transportation.
The cleanup has delayed construction, he said, and it cost an estimated $10 million-plus for the containment, handling and disposal of contaminated material.
VTrans now pegs the project’s total cost at $73 million, with 85% coming from federal highway improvement funds and 15% from state funds.
Crews are now building the piers that will support the new bridge, Griffin said.
“We’re up out of the water,” the project manager said. “So we’re starting to work on the components that are more visible as you drive by.”
He said another challenge is that, under U.S. Coast Guard regulations, boats must be able to pass through the bridge channel between May and October. So, for about half the year, crews cannot do work that would require either the temporary bridge or the new bridge to stay in the down position.
That’s why, even after the new bridge is open to vehicle traffic, it will likely take until 2023 for the temporary bridge to be deconstructed, he said.
Many boaters come down to the islands from Canada, and with the border closed, there’s been a drop in maritime traffic, Griffin said. Between mid-May and mid-June, the temporary bridge was opened about 70 times — which is low compared to previous years.
According to the project’s website, about 3,000 cars drive across the drawbridge every day during a typical off-season, a figure that doubles in the summer and fall.
Better bridge
The North Hero-Grand Isle bridge is the only drawbridge in Vermont’s highway system. There are just two other drawbridges in the state, and both are for trains.
Todd Sumner, the project’s former manager at VTrans, said the new drawbridge will be considerably better than the old span, which was built in 1953.
The new design includes larger piers that will enclose the counterweights on each side, preventing them from dipping into the water as they did on the old structure. It also will use hydraulic cylinders, which are more reliable than the electric motors that powered the old bridge.
“They’re actually designed to be redundant,” Sumner said of the hydraulics. “There’s enough capacity in one of those cylinders that, if the other cylinder fails, you can still open the bridge with one cylinder while you are replacing the other one.”
The new bridge has a concrete deck, which is safer for cyclists than the steel grate on the old bridge. And, the new shoulders will be a foot wider on each side.
Sumner said VTrans will sometimes ask local police to sit at the job site to discourage drivers from speeding through. “A lot of tickets” have been written there, he said.
Andy Julow, executive director of the North-Hero based Lake Champlain Islands Economic Development Corp., said he has not heard any recent concerns about the bridge construction from nearby businesses.
He said the project does not seem to have hampered tourism, and he thinks VTrans has done a good job limiting the effects of the construction on the local area.
“It’s a big deal,” Julow said of the drawbridge project. “And, occasionally, to have to wait for one lane of traffic is a pretty small price to pay for all that.”
