The Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA) officials announced that its contractor, UHPC Solutions North America LLC of Orange, New Jersey, completed Phase One of its $71 million bridge deck rehabilitation early Saturday, two days ahead of schedule.
As a result, all eight traffic lanes of the Delaware Memorial Bridge will be open during the Thanksgiving rush period.
“I’m very pleased that we are able to reopen all travel lanes to traffic ahead of schedule, allowing full access to our bridge in advance of the busy Thanksgiving travel period,” said DRBA Executive Director Tom Cook. “I want to commend our entire team, the contractor UHPC Solutions as well as our own engineering department and our consulting engineers, for their prompt work. They set an ambitious schedule of 78 calendar days for completion and exceeded it. We thank the traveling public for their patience and perseverance during the construction.” Cook noted that the right two lanes from the midpoint of the New Jersey-bound span back to the Delaware side are now fully rebuilt.
The second phase of the project, set to begin in February 2023 and conclude before Memorial Day weekend, will rehabilitate the two left lanes of the same structure. The third and final phase of the project, which will complete the right two lanes from the midpoint of the New Jersey-bound span to the New Jersey side, is expected to begin after Labor Day 2023 and be completed before Thanksgiving week.
The DRBA’s deck rehabilitation involves the use of new technology in the form of a ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) overlay. The overlay on the Delaware Memorial Bridge costs significantly less than traditional, full deck replacement, while also minimizing lane closing periods. The method is expected to extend the service life of the bridge deck by several decades. Use of UHPC on the Delaware Memorial Bridge is the largest such use in North America, to date.
