BURRILLVILLE -- The new Tarkiln Bridge arrived this week in 13 prefabricated pieces that the public works crew is assembling.
With five curved bridge pieces, the span now arches over the Tarkiln Brook.
"We're hoping to have the roadway open in 30 days," said Richard A. Bernardo, town engineer and director of public works.
Before it opens, bolts need to be tightened, drainage work needs to be completed and the road needs to be paved, Bernardo said.
The bridge has been closed since December 2001, after a state inspection revealed that steel girders underneath it had decayed.
The cost of the precast concrete bridge is "far more reasonable" than a steel bridge would be, Town Manager Michael C. Wood said yesterday at the bridge site. And the concrete bridge will be low-maintenance for the town, Bernardo said.
"You don't have to scrape and paint steel all the time because there are no steel girders," he explained.
As town employees worked yesterday assembling the new bridge, Bernardo said the project shows "the quality of the town's public works staff."
While final construction costs for the bridge aren't in, the project will cost the town about $180,000, Bernardo said. That's about $100,000 less than contractors had bid to do the project, he said.
Instead of paying an outside firm about $280,000 to build the bridge, the town decided to buy the bridge and do most of the installation itself, Bernardo said.
Once the Tarkiln Bridge opens, a smaller portion of Tarkiln Road will need to be closed again -- but not for nearly as long -- because the town will soon be replacing a small culvert over the river, Wood said.
The public works crew will do that project as well, Bernardo said.
Underneath the new Tarkiln Bridge, the town is leaving stone remnants of the old bridge -- at the state's request, Wood and Bernardo said.
That's because the footings for the old bridge weren't as far apart as the footings for the new bridge, and the state didn't want the opening under the bridge where the Tarkiln Brook runs to grow wider, Bernardo and Wood said.
If the brook were wider, the state's concern would be that more water would flow through during a hurricane and perhaps cause flooding further down the brook, Bernardo and Wood said.
Reporter Kate Bramson can be reached by e-mail at kbramson@projo.com
