Construction Highlights

The Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement Project is a “design-build” project. This method combines project design and construction into one contract, as opposed to the standard process done in three stages: design, bid, build. By being more efficient, design-build projects have the potential to be built faster, and at a lower cost, than traditional construction projects.

The new bridge will be built with a cable-stayed design. With 205 feet of clearance over the water, the new bridge will be high enough to accommodate the newest generation of the most efficient cargo ships. With three lanes in each direction plus safety lanes, it will be wider and better able to serve the current 68,000 vehicle trips that travel over the current bridge each day, which equals about 18 million trips a year.

Quick facts on the Bridge Project include the following:

• Height of Towers (2): 515 feet
• Support Columns: Approximately 100 combined for east, west approach spans
• Foundations: 352 below-ground piles supporting the above-ground columns
• Total Length: Approximately 8,800 feet, including 2,000 feet for cable-stayed span
• Cables: 40 for each tower. Each cable consists of 30-80 strands, depending on cable location. The longest cable on the bridge will be 573 feet long. If all the strands were laid end-to-end, they would add up to 1.7 million feet in length.
• Steel: 18 million pounds of structural steel, 75 million pounds of rebar (approx.)
• Concrete: 300,000 cubic yards (approx.)

Once built, this would make it the second-tallest cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. with the highest vertical clearance of any cable-stayed bridge in the U.S.