Park Ave. Bridge Reopens

Photo: A sight no more -- a Cranston police cruiser blocks the Park Avenue bridge for one final night on July 20. (Credit: Walter Belonos (@walterbelonos)

About a month after its abrupt closure, the Park Avenue bridge, which carries busy Route 12 across Amtrak Northeast Corridor tracks in Cranston, is finally open Tuesday.

A layer of fresh asphalt covering a new wooden deck leaves motorists a smooth surface and a return to unfettered access to Cranston’s central east-west artery, but the bridge by no means is good for the long haul. It still remains structurally deficient and is in need of a major overhaul at some point in the future.

The $411,000 contract awarded to John Rocchio Corp. was completed six days ahead of schedule, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation said in a release.

The DOT said it sped up the closure time with the deployment of RIDOT highway and bridge maintenance crews who worked overnight the first weekend to tear up and get rid of the old asphalt surface.

That let John Rocchio Corp. crews come to replace the bridge deck a bit sooner. The official notice for the job listed a reopening date on July 27.

Almost all of the work was done overnight due to the fact that the bridge is laden with electrical lines that flow through the Amtrack system. As a result, crews had to coordinate with Amtrak for timed outages.

Those lines have been blamed for starting fires on the bridge in the past.

The DOT said 17,000 cars use the bridge each day and because it is structurally deficient, a 16-ton weight limit remains.

“Rhode Island needs a sustainable funding solution in order to make permanent fixes to this bridge and the more than 200 other structurally deficient bridges across our state.”

In the vibrant political climate that clings to Rhode Island like the salt air from Narragansett Bay, the closure sparked some drama at the State House.

It turns out that the bridge is a stone’s throw from Speaker of the House Nicholas Matteillo’s office. He promptly called for an investigation into the closure, noting that an inspection nine months earlier deemed the bridge safe for cars.

And it just so happens that the closure came in the midst of a call from state officials led by Governor Gina Raimondo to adopt a comprehensive “Rhode Works” infrastructure plan that would use some borrowing to finance a massive reconstruction of the state’s infrastructure.

Raimondo shrugged off the furor, saying that the bridge was closed after an expedited inspection showed it posed an immediate danger and had no knowledge that Mattiello’s office was nearby.

Meanwhile, three top engineers with the DOT are now on paid administrative leave during an ongoing review of the agency’s operations and management. State officials have remained mum, so it is unclear if the issues are related in any way.

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