Anyone who has driven through I-95 to I-91 has seen all the construction that has been happening.  That is going to be the new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, which we will hopefully be driving on by the end of the summer if all goes to plan.  Construction has been going on for a while now and soon will be over ahead of schedule and under budget.

Just last week one of the three “closure” sections was filled in with concrete which will be helping build the roadway from the East Shore side of New Haven Harbor.  This bridge will connect to the bridge deck that has been standing lonesome for some time now.

The next step after that will be to do the same thing to the western side.  And by the end of May, if all goes well, the central gap between the bridges will be closed and the new Q bridge’s golden spike will be there.

Even though it seems like this has been going on forever, for less than a year, workers have been pouring concrete into sections to extend the bridge deck until they are close enough and ready to be joined.

Both the bridge project and the construction on I-95 and I-91 are ahead of schedule and under budget according to Brian Mercure, assistant district engineer for the state Department of Transportation.  The first step for cars will be transferring them from the old bridge to new one, which was supposed to be happening in late September but now looks like it will happening sometime in the mid-summer.

So the thanks should go to all the trades that have been working on this project for a while now.  Some of those trades include carpenters iron workers, concrete workers, masons and inspectors, and many more.  When this is finally over these are the people who deserve the round of applause because they have been working nonstop, and it has been paying off.