Project Overview - Replacement of the Willis Avenue Bridge
Location: New York, New York
Client: New York City Department of Transportation
Hardesty & Hanover performed bridge design for the Willis Avenue Swing Bridge located between the Bronx and Manhattan. This project involves the replacement of the existing Willis Avenue Swing Bridge with a new off-line swing bridge and 3,000 feet of approach viaducts, including the ramps providing connection from the FDR Drive and to Bruckner Boulevard.
H&H project work includes a NYCDOT Bridge Reconstruction Project Report and preliminary design, a DR/EIS necessary for state/federal funding, and final design. The design incorporates a new 345-foot-long through-truss-type swing span, steel box girder spans over an active rail yard, curved girders and other structure-types necessary to stage construction and maintain traffic including 72,000 vehicles per day on the mainline bridge. Included in the design is a new combined bikeway/walkway facility provided to connect adjoining parks and a NYC bike route in Manhattan and the Bronx. Extensive community participation and agency coordination was required as was permitting from many city, state, and federal agencies. H&H provided seismic analysis studies; complex geometry; traffic impact for approach streets; environmental impact statements; mitigation of impacts on historic structures; and in-house structural, mechanical and electrical design.