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Date: 8/2/2022
SOUTHAMPTON – The bulk of the work on the East Street Bridge in Southampton is finished, with the remainder of the work to occur over the next two months, according to Highway Superintendent and Parks Commissioner Randall Kemp.
“Basically, over the past few months the concrete abutments were finished, the structural steel erected and bridge deck formed, rebar [was] reinforced and poured,” Kemp told Reminder Publishing.
With those activities completed, Kemp said that the upcoming work on the bridge will include backfill, riprap and other site work, sidewalk work, safety curbs and approach slabs. It will also include the installation of the bridge and approach guardrails, endposts, granite curb and storm water drainage, spraying and applying the bridge deck membrane, asphalt pavement work on the bridge deck and approaches, pavement markings and erosion control work.
“The extension the contractor requested back in February had an end date of Sept. 30 and we remain optimistic that they are on track to have activities substantially completed by that date,” Kemp said. “I know that residents and Bashista Orchards – located on East Street – are anxiously awaiting the bridge to be reopened as the detour around the bridge is inconvenient for residents and has had a marked effect on the volume of business the orchard has seen during bridge construction.
“We remain cautiously optimistic that they, the contractor, is on track to have activities substantially completed by that date [Sept. 30],” Kemp continued, “and that the bridge will be able to be opened but as you can imagine with a project of this scope there are any number of setbacks that could occur to push the date which the bridge will be open to traffic out so I hesitate to qualify that the bridge will be open that day.”
Town Administrator Ed Gibson told Reminder Publishing back in the spring that replacement of this bridge is part of the larger effort to completely reconstruct East Street.
The replacement of the bridge itself, according to Gibson, cost $2.6 million in total with $1 million coming from a MassWorks grant, which is a statewide program that assists with the long-term sustainability of municipalities across Massachusetts. The other $1.6 million came from a debt exclusion that was approved during the Annual Town Meeting in 2019. The town also applied to the state’s Transportation Improvement Program to try and acquire funding for the entire East Street project, which costs around $4 million.
Gibson told Reminder Publishing that drivers will have a “smoother ride” across the new bridge compared to the older one. Additionally, the new bridge will be wider and will have a combined bike/pedestrian sidewalk on it which will lead into the rest of the East Street upgrade.
“The idea at the time was that we’d be able to, when East Street gets done, to utilize at the Route 10 section a bike/pedestrian combination so anybody riding on Route 10 will be able to go that way and get over to Labrie Field,” said Gibson.
Southampton has been talking about replacing the bridge and making improvements on East Street since 2009, well before Gibson arrived in town.