J.R. Vinagro was tasked with demolishing a 250-foot bridge and replacing it with a 200-foot single span over the Pawtuxet River in a 65-hour window utilizing Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) methods.
The presence of the river below introduced a massive hurdle with capturing demolition debris and access from side to side. The obvious schedule restrictions and sheer volume of material being handled presented challenges as well. J.R. Vinagro also found PCB’s present in the existing bridge barrier which required the material to be separated from the rest of the concrete elements during demolition.
Our strategy started with months of planning, allocating resources like labor and equipment to every step of the project, and preparing an hour-by-hour schedule to accomplish our goal. Once work commenced, it was important to track our productivity to maintain schedule and to ensure the quality and accuracy of work. Preparing resources in advance of each task was critical. We also made sure that each incoming shift of labor overlapped with the last so that there was no lag in production or information turnover. J.R. Vinagro took on this massive challenge as our very first bridge build and was able to remove the existing deficient bridge and replace it with a new span with traffic safely traveling over it within a 65-hour window.
