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http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news..._bridges_on_i-.html?p1=HP_Well_YourTown_links
State transportation officials unveiled a plan to the Medford City Council this week outlining the replacement of overpasses at seven major points along Interstate 93 north of Boston.
The project will include the installation of 14 new prefabricated spans, two at each of the seven points along the heavily trafficked artery.
Officials are planning to replace overpasses at Route 16, Mystic River, Riverside Avenue, Salem Street east- and west-bound, Webster Street, and Valley Street. Work is scheduled to take place over a series of weekends beginning June 1 and ending Sept. 1, said Matt Hopkinson, project manager, at a meeting of the Medford City Council.
Each span is scheduled to take a weekend to replace, with work on the roadways expected to begin each Friday evening after rush hour, Hopkinson said. If everything goes as planned, all lanes of travel will be reopened by 5 a.m. each Monday, he said.
The plans for replacing the spans come almost four months after two gaping holes broke open in the bridge over Valley Street on two consecutive days. Repairs snarled traffic and delayed commuters while construction crews scurried to fix the damage, caused by years of decay that had weakened the inner steel substructures.
Preparation work for the project is slated to begin as early as this winter and extend into the spring.
Construction techniques now allow workers to play a mammoth version of cut and paste: Using heavy machinery and cutting torches, workes will chisel their way through the overpasses at either end near where the roadway connects to the base structure, and replace the center section with prefabricated pieces that can be lowered in place by a crane.
The method should allow workers to spend one weekend on each overpass.
The $75 million project was originally funded by the state?s accelerated bridge replacement program, a multibillion dollar effort by state officials to bring Massachusett?s aging bridges up to date. But managers for the project said federal funding is expected to pick up about 80 percent of the projected cost.
State Department of Transportation officials have not finalized the order in which the overpasses will be worked on, but at the council meeting Tuesday, Hopkinson assured councilors that the agency?s planners have created heavy penalties for contractors who do not clear the roadways by 5 a.m. on Monday morning after work is finished at a particular site.
In its comments to state planners, the Medford council requested that as great an effort possible be made to reach out to residents who live near the sites, many of which are located in densely populated areas where the roadway can run just yards from homes and businesses.
To further allay fears of the delays experienced in August when emergency work was carried out, Hopkinson said a mobile command center, staffed with area police and fire personnel as well as officers from the State Police, will be installed close to the sites. The center will be connected to video feeds from traffic cameras that keep watch over the busy corridor, reported to carry more than 100,000 vehicles per day.
While crews work on a particular overpass, a specialized ?zipper truck? will move a flexible center barrier and reroute cars and trucks to the opposite side of the highway, Hopkinson said. Work will be suspended for the July Fourth holiday, he added.