NAPLES – While simply witnessing next Friday’s opening of the new Bay of Naples Bridge will be memorable enough, five dollars and some good luck could yield something worth telling the grandchildren about: You were the first person to drive over the new bridge.
Or, the last person to drive across the old bridge, which, in a few short weeks, will be consigned to the scrap heap and memory banks of those who floated below it or drove over it.
While the big celebration slated for Friday, May 18, will mark the transfer of traffic from the old bridge to the new bridge, the $9.2 million restoration of the Naples Causeway is far from complete. (The town is paying $405,000 of the cost with state and federal highway funding sources covering the rest.) But the major piece of the project, the new concrete bridge, which has been under construction for the last 15 months, is a significant milestone.
And with the pair of raffles up for grabs, two lucky people will play a big role in May 18’s extravaganza planned to begin at 1 p.m. atop the newly finished bridge. One raffle winner will follow a grand parade consisting of marching bands, fire apparatus and antique cars over the old bridge and forever get to brag about being the last driver to cross the old swinging bridge, constructed almost 60 years ago. And the other lucky winner will get to lead the parade onto the new fixed bridge, and claim equal bragging rights.
The ceremony, which starts a day and night’s worth of celebration, will also mark the occasion when the Maine Department of Transportation, in charge of the project along with general contractor Wyman & Simpson, is ready to open the new bridge to traffic.
“We’re calling this celebration, ‘Bridging the Generations,’” said Bob Neault, chairman of the Causeway Restoration Committee, the citizen-led group that has helped design the project right down to the plantings and benches. “So it’s the first day of the new generation of the bridge, and hopefully the first of a total revitalization of the causeway area.”
Neault said the new fixed bridge, which replaces the 1954 swinging bridge that has served the town well but is fast falling into disrepair, is the focus of a comprehensive causeway restoration.
“The condition of the causeway prior to this project was a vision from the 1950s. It was totally geared to the automobile. What we are hoping to create now is the re-vegetation and directing the attention of the causeway to the pedestrian. We want people walking around spending time visiting and hopefully that will attract more business to Naples,” Neault said.
Big day
If you aren’t planning to attend the ceremony being held at the new bridge or watch the parade, plan to avoid the causeway area on Friday from about 1:15 to 2 p.m. But if you attend the historic opening, event planners have a memorable spectacle lined up.
According to Neault, the playing of the National Anthem will start off the festivities at 1 p.m., followed by speeches by Neault, state Rep. Rich Cebra of Naples and Maine Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Bruce Van Note. After the speeches, there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by the announcement of the raffle winners.
Once raffle winners get their vehicles in place, a parade will follow, which will start on the Bridgton side of the old bridge. The parade will cross the old bridge turn-around in the Bay of Naples Condominium complex and proceed over the new bridge to the Village Green, where a catered party is open to all.
Among the parade participants will be a vehicle from 1954 (the year the old bridge was commissioned), six vehicles from 2012, Naples Fire-Rescue apparatus including a 1939 fire engine, marching bands from Lake Region Middle School and High School, and, of course, the raffle winners.
On the Village Green,Vicki Toole, a Naples resident, columnist for the Lakes Region Weekly and owner of Lake Region Caterers, will serve hors d’oeuvres for event participants and the public.
“It’s going to be a pretty big deal. We’re going to have a tent right on the Village Green, with chandeliers and passed hors d’oeuvres and stationary hors d’oeuvres, because they and I want to make it fancy because it is such a big deal,” Toole said.
Toole said Amy Burger, a local baker, is going to prepare a “fancy theme cake” for the event, too.
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but I’m excited,” Toole said. “Everything is going to be top-notch.”
The day will end with a wine tasting and silent auction at Merced’s starting at 6 p.m. Tickets for the event are $30 with all proceeds going to Naples Main Street, the organization that is aiming to raise $405,000 for additional features of the project, mainly plantings and a green space proposed on the Brandy Pond side of the roadway.
So far, so good
While the bridge opening ceremony is a major milestone in the project, by no means is it the end of the project. The Department of Transportation’s Craig Hurd, resident engineer for the Naples Causeway project, says the projected completion date is May 2013, although better-than-anticipated weather this winter may move it up to this fall.
“There’s still a lot to do. Just because we’re opening the bridge, everybody says, oh, you must be done. Well, no, not really. There’s still quite a bit to do,” Hurd said.
Summer projects will include extending the 15-foot wide boardwalk that runs along the Long Lake side of the bridge, removing the old bridge, continuing to build the seawall along the Brandy Pond side, installing sidewalks in the area of the bridge, and planting trees in the fall.
However, the first job for Wyman & Simpson after the new bridge is operational May 18 is to remove the old swinging bridge, which just recently, Hurd noted, formed some buckling in the sidewalk portion.
“It’s good timing, since this bridge is really old. So, right after we open the new bridge, the contractor’s going to start removing the old bridge, because even though we have the new bridge open, the old bridge is in the way so you can’t get boats underneath it and you can’t work on that side very well.”
Specifications of the new bridge are impressive compared with the old bridge. Hurd said the new bridge spans 80 feet from abutment to abutment, and features a 30-foot-wide navigation channel. The height of the new bridge above the average summer water level is 12 feet 8 inches.
The bridge is 52 feet wide from railing to railing and will feature 12-foot travel lanes, a 5-foot shoulder on the Brandy Pond side and an 8-foot shoulder on the Long Lake side, which might be used for parking, Hurd said. There will also be 6-foot-wide sidewalks on both sides.
The bridge’s appearance, which Neault viewed recently from a boat on Long Lake and deemed was “just beautiful,” is a concrete arch design that Hurd said is atypical of modern bridge project designs.
“You don’t see any arches anymore. This is very rare. It’s something different; it offers a nicer look. And it fits in more with the community. It’s just a nicer-looking bridge,” Hurd said.
The steel-reinforced concrete arch, which is 5 feet thick at the abutments and 20 inches thick at the peak in the middle of the bridge, may be more aesthetic, but the main reason designers used the design was for boat traffic. Modern bridges usually employ steel I-beams to support the roadbed. Doing so, however, would have meant clearances of 6 to 8 feet in the channel, meaning only small boats could pass underneath.
With the higher clearance, however, comes a higher overall bridge elevation relative to street level. The bridge rises about 10 feet higher than the old bridge, but not as high, Hurd says, as some were fearing when the bridge was first proposed.
“Everyone thought it was going to be this huge bump, but it’s very smooth and blends right in,” Hurd said. “A lot of people were worried it’d be a big eyesore in town, but that’s another reason for the arch design.”
Expect major ?paving delays
Budget-wise, Hurd said the bridge is “a little over budget” due to the town wanting to extend paving about 2,000 feet from where the project was slated to end (in front of Sandy’s Flight Deck, near the Route 114 intersection) to the Naples Fire-Rescue building, where a Route 302 paving project ended about five years ago. Further paving will take place starting at the Route 35 intersection and extending about a quarter-mile to just beyond the entrance to Tony’s Foodland.
“So we’re budgeting $400,000 extra for that. Costs are way higher for materials, the price of oil and steel being very expensive,” Hurd said.
While traffic delays have become a local headache for quite a while, the next few weeks will be severe, Hurd said.
“Between now and mid-June, it could be long to very major delays, especially when we pave,” Hurd said. “When we pave surface on these areas, people are going to be backed up for miles. So that’s why we have variable message boards warning people to expect it. And if you don’t want to sit in traffic, just avoid the area.”
The big push to finish paving is per the department’s contract with the town, which bans the contractor from limiting traffic to one lane in the summer tourist season from mid-June to Labor Day.
“By mid-June though, when tourist season gets really busy, we’ll be done with traffic snarls by then,” Hurd said.
Traffic threads through the Naples Causeway job site, where work will continue even after the May 18 opening of the new bridge. (Photos by Rich Obrey)
Photo by Rich Obrey
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