PORTSMOUTH – Bridge workers will continue drilling and testing tower shafts this winter for Portsmouth’s newest river crossing.

Friday, December 28, 2001

PORTSMOUTH – Bridge workers will continue drilling and testing tower shafts this winter for Portsmouth’s newest river crossing.

The U.S. Grant Bridge replacement project is on schedule on both sides of the Ohio River, said Kathleen Fuller, spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Transportation.

"The contractors have been making tremendous progress in the weeks following major demolition of the bridge, continuing with demolition efforts and preliminary construction," said ODOT District 9 field engineer Dan Beasley, one of several engineers heading up the project for ODOT

In recent weeks, C.J. Mahan Construction crews have been drilling shafts for the Ohio tower, one of two that will support the cables of the new suspension bridge, Mrs. Fuller said.

Crews built coffer dams to hold back the waters of the Ohio, then began drilling. The towers and testing of the shafts will make up the bulk of the initial work on the bridge, she said, citing monthly contractor/engineer meetings with ODOT.

"Things are going fine – they’re not ahead or behind; they’re right were they should be."

Mahan’s crews also are driving pile for the pier’s footers and continuing roadway approach work on the Ohio side, engineers said.

The state has salvaged parts of the old Portsmouth bridge, which will be used in an historic display once the new one’s finished, Mrs. Fuller said.

A monument and outdoor display will be set up in a park area near the Ohio side of the new bridge, she said.

Upon its completion in 2004, this will be Ohio’s first cable stayed bridge. During construction of the new bridge, traffic will be detoured via U.S. Route 52 and the Carl Perkins Bridge (Ohio Route 852), approximately two miles west of Portsmouth.

The U.S. Grant Bridge replacement project was initiated in 1992 by ODOT, which sought to erect a new bridge carrying U.S. 23 from Portsmouth to South Shore, Ky.

Built in 1927 and used as a toll bridge, the U.S. Grant Bridge was acquired by ODOT from the now-defunct Ohio Bridge Commission in 1974. From 1977 to 1996, more than $9 million was spent to rehabilitate various sections of the bridge. Following numerous inspections that have been conducted since that time, the bridge was found to be functionally obsolete and structurally deficient for current and future traffic needs.

In order to maintain a bridge in this location, it was determined that further rehabilitation or replacement of the bridge would be necessary. The costs associated with additional rehabilitation projects were approximately $28 million.

Today’s standards require that the structure have two, 12-foot lanes with two-foot shoulders and that it carry 150 percent of the legal load. Therefore, it was deemed necessary and financially prudent to replace the existing bridge rather than rehabilitate it.

Following environmental clearances and mitigation issues, a contract to replace the bridge was let in the spring of 2001, and in April, the C.J. Mahan Company of Grove City, Ohio, was awarded a contract in the amount of $28,434,495 to replace the existing structure with the steel-based cable stayed bridge.f