Vincent N Campisi, PE, Consulting Engineer, LLC

06/17/2016

06/17/2016

This Truss bridge known as the Checkered House Bridge in Richmond Vermont is a historic bridge over the Winooski River. The bridge was functionally obsolete because of the narrow roadway width and no shoulders. The truss is a Pennsylvania type truss and is 350 feet long. The Vermont Agency of Transportation agreed with our recommendation (I was at the time the Chief Engineer for Transportation Structures at CHA, and the Principal in Charge of the Project) to relocate traffic onto a temporary bridge alongside the existing bridge, split the truss and slide one of the trusses over onto widened substructures at the abutments to provide two lanes of traffic at 11 feet each and two 4 foot wide shoulders. The bridge was widened a total of 12'- 6" in this manner. This was the first time that a truss of this length was split in half and one truss moved over laterally without dismantling the truss. This innovative solution enabled a historic structure to be preserved and have an extended useful life at less cost than the cost of a bridge replacement.