Town Bridge Road Bridge - Preliminary Structure Report (abstract)

Part of the process for reconstructing the Town Bridge Road bridge is a review of possible options for improvements. Below is a link to the Preliminary Structural Report for the Town Bridge Road Bridge which identifies various options for improvements to the bridge, including options from doing nothing to rebuilding a new bridge.

As indicated in the Preliminary Structure Report below; the Town Bridge Road Bridge over the Farmington River (ConnDOT Bridge No. 05222) was constructed by the Town of Canton in 1895 as the replacement for a wooden covered bridge at the same location. The single lane through truss was fabricated and assembled by the Berlin Iron Bridge Company of Berlin, Connecticut.  Town Bridge has entered its second century of service to the Town.  It is quickly becoming one of a limited number of through truss bridges constructed in the late 1800s that is still in active vehicular use.  The bridge is presently structurally deficient, because of its load carrying capacity and geometry limitations. 

The Preliminary Structure Report looked into five (5) options for dealing with the bridge’s condition; which included a “no build” (Null Alternative) [$0]; three (3) options that deal with reducing the various levels of structural deficiency and structural obsolescence [$2,560,000 to $3,700,000] along with an option that considers a new, fully compliant, bridge structure north of the existing bridge while converting the existing bridge to a pedestrian bridge [$10,190,000].

A presentation and discussion of the Preliminary Structural Report will be included on the agenda for the Annual Town meeting scheduled for Wednesday January 21, 2015 at 7:00 p.m.

Click HERE to view Preliminary Structure Report