THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510120374
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KITTY HAWK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The old span of the Wright Memorial Bridge is closed for repairs, and Outer Banks motorists are being diverted to two-way traffic on the new span.
Workers shut down the two lanes on the southern span of the bridge this week and removed a 45-foot-wide steel section from its center.
For the next seven months, motorists traveling through Currituck County to the Outer Banks will have to merge to the left at the west end of the Wright Memorial Bridge and cross the sound on the span that opened last spring. One lane will carry traffic into the barrier island beaches. The other will take cars back to the mainland.
Both spans of the 2.8-mile bridge - and all four lanes - will be open to traffic by Memorial Day 1996.
``This time of year, you don't have problems using a two-lane bridge to the Outer Banks,'' North Carolina Board of Transportation member R.V. Owens III said Wednesday. ``People will still be able to get into and out of here just fine.
``Our goal was to get that new bridge open in time for summer traffic, so we'd have four lanes during our busiest season. Now, we're going to rehabilitate the old bridge so that it will be open again in time for next summer's traffic.''
Orange barrels, plastic cones and a blinking, illuminated sign direct motorists through the new traffic pattern at the west end of the bridge's two parallel spans.
Originally, repairs to the old Wright Memorial Bridge were to be made while the new span was being built. But in order to expedite the opening of the new bridge, state transportation officials broke the repair and construction projects into two separate contracts. T.A. Loving Co. of Goldsboro built the new $20 million span that opened in May.
Coastal Gunite of Cambridge, Md., has the contract to do $1.3 million in repairs to the 29-year-old span.
``They removed the steel span from the center of that old bridge Tuesday, so now there's a 45-foot hole there,'' Department of Transportation resident engineer Tommy Brite said. ``We'll put concrete back in there instead of another steelplate. That way, the ride across should be much smoother by next summer.''
The steel plate, Brite said, was included in the old bridge so that in case a big boat or barge needed to pass underneath, the bridge could be shut down and the plate removed. Once concrete is poured in its place, that no longer will be an option. But the new bridge does not have any way to open for tall masts anyway, Brite said, so the old bridge no longer needs to be able to open like a draw span.
Besides replacing the steel plate, workers will repair broken and cracked concrete underneath the old bridge; fix some joints in the concrete span; and install new approach slabs on each end of the old bridge, where it re-connects with the highway.
``We'll get you on and off that bridge smoother,'' Brite said. ``Work will begin in earnest on Monday. And it'll all be done - and both bridges will be open - by mid-May.''
An average of 12,800 vehicles cross the Wright Memorial Bridge each day throughout the year. On summer weekends, traffic counts often swell to more than 50,000. By 2004, the bridge is expected to carry an average of 39,300 vehicles across the sound every day. by CNB