Includes long term lane and ramp closures
http://blog.mass.gov/transportation/massdot-highway/springfield-i-91-viaduct-project-lane-ramp-closures-begin-mid-december/
Quote from: roadman on December 09, 2015, 10:26:41 AM
Includes long term lane and ramp closures
http://blog.mass.gov/transportation/massdot-highway/springfield-i-91-viaduct-project-lane-ramp-closures-begin-mid-december/
I've driven on this thing a few times in the past. Is it a full reconstruction?
Quote from: Buffaboy on December 09, 2015, 02:00:34 PM
Quote from: roadman on December 09, 2015, 10:26:41 AM
Includes long term lane and ramp closures
http://blog.mass.gov/transportation/massdot-highway/springfield-i-91-viaduct-project-lane-ramp-closures-begin-mid-december/
I've driven on this thing a few times in the past. Is it a full reconstruction?
Full deck replacement, worn structural steel elements will also be replaced.
I guess a reconstruction project will have to wait. If it does happen, could they at least add emergency shoulders to the roadway?
I'm reading and seeing Bernie Avenue. Is that Exit 11 from southbound I-91? I'm on that ramp often if coming back from Vermont on Greyhound or PVTA from the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside.
I also noticed, while in Springfield last Friday (December 4th) that the on-ramp from East Columbus Avenue near Springfield Symphony Hall (and the U-turn ramp to it under I-91) was closed.
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on December 09, 2015, 02:21:01 PM
I guess a reconstruction project will have to wait. If it does happen, could they at least add emergency shoulders to the roadway?
"Reconstruction" is the longer-term project about 20+ years out with options to make at-grade or tunnel.
Quote from: Alps on December 09, 2015, 06:03:29 PM
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on December 09, 2015, 02:21:01 PM
I guess a reconstruction project will have to wait. If it does happen, could they at least add emergency shoulders to the roadway?
"Reconstruction" is the longer-term project about 20+ years out with options to make at-grade or tunnel.
Why do they want this? Is it inhibiting waterfront access or something?
In part...yes. There's also a big debate about an interstate viaduct about 30 miles south of there. In this case, it's what to do with the so-called Aetna Viaduct, an elevated stretch of I-84 in Hartford.
I would think that it would be easier to get to the waterfront through a viaduct than across an at-grade freeway
Quote from: vdeane on December 10, 2015, 02:18:17 PM
I would think that it would be easier to get to the waterfront through a viaduct than across an at-grade freeway
At-grade freeway? Pssh, there are inevitably going to be calls to tear I-91 down and give it the urban boulevard treatment.
Or, perhaps more sanely, relocate it across the river using the US 5 alignment.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 10, 2015, 06:55:01 PM
Quote from: vdeane on December 10, 2015, 02:18:17 PM
I would think that it would be easier to get to the waterfront through a viaduct than across an at-grade freeway
At-grade freeway? Pssh, there are inevitably going to be calls to tear I-91 down and give it the urban boulevard treatment.
Or, perhaps more sanely, relocate it across the river using the US 5 alignment.
Yeah no, you're not fitting anything like I-91 in the US 5 corridor.
Quote from: Alps on December 10, 2015, 09:53:09 PM
Yeah no, you're not fitting anything like I-91 in the US 5 corridor.
Check your sarcasm detector, man. ;-)
My point is that this idea is more sane than boulevardifying the existing viaduct and simply shrugging at the fact that doing that leaves no north-south all-freeway route through the area, and is probably less ridiculous than any other potential solution to that problem.
Wasn't the original plan of I-91 to have it west of the Connecticut River, as a good 90% of that road is now? Keeping it west of the river would've also bypassed Enfield, CT as well.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 10, 2015, 06:55:01 PMthere are inevitably going to be calls to tear I-91 down and give it the urban boulevard treatment.
Assuming that you weren't being facetious in your post; given that I-91 serves as a commerce corridor for western New England,
nothing other than a freeway will suffice.
That viaduct is also the gift that keeps on giving to construction contractors and governors who want to pay lip service to distributing more money to western MA (i.e, "Oh, you're complaining about no money going to Hamden, Hampshire & Franklin? Here's another I-91 viaduct/environs project for you...").
Tell me about it! They were working on the Springfield viaduct in the 1990s, the whole I was at college at Western New England College. Sounds like the rehab of Memorial Bridge, which also took years.
MassDOT is going to pilot a dynamic merge system on I-91 as part of the project.
http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2016/09/massdot_details_dynamic_merge_at_i-91_up.html
That viaduct work is long done now. (Sorry to bump this thread!) It looks 10 times better now from street level, such as East Columbus Boulevard, between the Basketball Hall Of Fame to the area of the MGM Casino.