Lovers Lane over Comstock Brook Bridge Replacement

The Town of Wilton, CT, a quintessential New England community dotted with colonial landmarks and dedicated space for outdoor recreation, contracted Fuss & O’Neill to replace a 33-foot, single-span bridge that provided connectivity to Wilton’s historic community theater, a passive recreation park and trail, and a number of private residences. The aging bridge had outlived its useful life and presented a safety concern.

Fuss & O’Neill completed final design of the bridge replacement. The new structure accommodates a 22-foot-wide roadway with a 25-foot, 8-inch-wide by 43-foot-long superstructure consisting of seven 15-inch-deep prestressed concrete voided deck units. The beams are topped with a minimum 6-inch-thick cast-in-place concrete deck utilizing galvanized reinforcement, lined with crash-tested 3-tube open bridge rail. Both cast-in-place concrete abutments were located so that they would bear on the natural stone outcroppings that contain Comstock Brook at this location.

The superstructure design was completed in LEAP Concrete and the load rating was performed in AASHTOWare’s BrR. All exposed concrete surfaces were designed to be clad in a real aesthetic stone facing to help blend the bridge with its stone supports, the park setting, and the stone dam directly downstream from the bridge. To ensure the longevity of this replacement project, the roadway profile was raised, which allows for the passage of 100-year and 500-year storm events. Additionally, our design removed existing catch basins and provided a closed roadway drainage system with new catch basins, pipes, and outfalls.

The existing bridge was the single point of ingress and egress in a well-traversed area. To support community needs, Fuss & O’Neill detailed a temporary vehicular bridge to accommodate a single 12-foot minimum roadway during construction while maintaining access to all adjacent driveways. Our traffic engineers designed one-way alternating signals to control one lane at a time over the temporary bridge.

In the process of the design, we created a survey-accurate bridge model of the proposed bridge. That high-quality model was used as a cost-saving measure and a secondary source of information during construction. Both the contractor and the construction inspector found the model helpful for clarifying the design intent, for visualizing how bridge components interacted, and for visualizing their construction sequencing. It reduced RFIs and construction mistakes.

The northeast stone masonry retaining wall was replaced with a new concrete retaining wall clad with stone masonry. To adhere to Town standards, Fuss & O’Neill detailed the exposed concrete faces with a genuine stone masonry wall. This mortar supporting this wall is dovetailed into slots cast in the concrete faces, all topped with a concrete cap. Each stone was individually placed in the mortar bed by a mason to fit, intricately, into place. The design was so well received that the Town is re-using the concept for two future bridges.

Fuss & O’Neill’s approach to this award-winning bridge replacement project was considerate of community needs, thoughtful of the surrounding setting, respectful of historic design, and always focused on safety. The new bridge beautifully blends with the Town’s character while better facilitating safe travel.