Facelift for Little River Rt. 2 bridge on the horizon for 2023

August 8, 2020  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

The U.S. Route 2 bridge #44 looking eastward towards Waterbury village. The bridge spans the Little River where it meets the Winooski River (on right). Interstate 89 lies to the north on the left. Google Maps screenshot.

Just in case Waterbury gets nostalgic for road construction after the Main Street project wraps up next year, VTrans will be back in 2023 with a $4.6 million project to refurbish the U.S. Route 2 bridge over the Little River. 

Officials from the Vermont Agency of Transportation joined the Waterbury Select Board meeting this week for a presentation on the project that will result in extending the life of the bridge another 60 years. 

Built in 1961, the 243-foot-long Rt. 2 bridge spans the Little River where it meets the Winooski River between Little River Road to the west and Farr Road. It sits just to the south of Interstate 89 and 1.3 miles west of the Waterbury roundabout. 

In 1984 the bridge was repainted and in 2014 it was repaved, according to the VTrans presentation, but now it is considered structurally deficient due to deterioration of its deck and piers.  

Vtrans scoping engineer Laura Stone provided a slide presentation that is available with other project details on the agency’s website. She described the bridge’s condition with detailed drawings and photographs that document crumbling concrete and cracks in the substructure.

Stone explained how project staff looked at several options for both the scope of work to the bridge and the process for conducting the work. The options ranged from doing nothing to a full replacement, Stone explained. 

Designers settled on a “robust” $4.6 million refurbishing that will replace the bridge deck and substructure and encase the supporting piers. The result should give the bridge a new lifespan of about another 60 years, Stone said, comparing it with an entirely new bridge that would last about 75 years at a cost of approximately $7.3 million. 

The project is on state property and would be paid for entirely by the state, Stone said. The project is in the VTrans work schedule for 2023 and it should take just one construction season to complete. 

One consideration was how to proceed with the work and whether to use a temporary bridge to carry traffic during the construction period. Stone said that transportation planners preferred to include a temporary span rather than rely on maintaining one-lane traffic during the project. 

Route 2 is a busy stretch in its own right carrying approximately 3,000 vehicles per day and it is also a popular route for bicyclists, Stone said. 

In addition Rt. 2 is a backup route in the event of an accident or road closure on I-89. “We felt it important to maintain two-way traffic through the project area,” added VTrans Project Manager Todd Sumner. 

A temporary bridge would be installed between the Rt. 2 bridge and I-89, Stone said, and that could possibly be done in the fall of 2022 in preparation for work to start in the spring of 2023. 

The project site is close to the intersection of Farr Road with Rt. 2 but the VTrans officials said it should not interfere with local traffic. 

Select Board members asked questions of the project officials but did not need to take any action on the matter since it is entirely a state project.