Located in east central Maine on the Penobscot River, Bangor is the state's third-largest city with approximately 32,000 residents. Interstate 95 runs over 1,900 miles along the eastern seaboard and travels through Bangor, where the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) and general contractor New England Infrastructure Inc. (NEI) are in the middle of the Bangor Broadway Bridge Project. The bridge carries I-95 traffic.
The average daily traffic in this section of I-95 is approximately 40,000, while it is 22,000 for Broadway. Approximately 9 percent of the I-95 traffic consists of heavy commercial trucks.
The aging bridge has multiple wear and tear issues. The deck has deteriorated and needs replacement; the substructure piers are in a declining condition; and the steel beams in the superstructure show damage from oversized loads.
"Because of the multiple issues, it was determined that a replacement bridge was the correct scope for this project," said Andrew Lathe, MaineDOT Project Manager.
Lathe added that a recurring issue also prompted the raising of the bottom flange elevation by 1.3 feet to provide more vertical clearance under the bridge.
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Construction includes full bridge removal and replacement, with an existing three-span steel girder bridge being replaced by a single-span steel girder bridge on new cast-in-place concrete abutments. The replacement bridge will have a 102-foot 6-inch span, with 15 feet 6 inches of vertical clearance at the lowest point. Construction will also impact the approaches to the bridge.
The project also includes a multimodal component, funded via a grant for safety improvements to portions of Route 15, which is within the bridge project limits.
“The department decided to join the multimodal safety improvement project with the bridge project to have a single contractor maintain site access, site safety, and traffic maintenance,” Lathe said. “The multimodal safety project includes road alignment and signal upgrades at the intersections of Broadway and the southbound on/off ramps, the northbound on/off ramps, and the reconfiguration of the Center Street and Earle Avenue intersections with Route 15.”
Infrastructure projects conducted around live traffic can be a potential safety hazard to the crew and the driving public.
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The balance between maintaining the safety of the traveling public and allowing enough room to construct the project effectively has been the team's biggest challenge, according to Travis Hamel, a MaineDOT Area Construction Engineer. The challenge impacted project design.
"To facilitate the balance, the project was designed with a temporary bridge to carry I-95 southbound traffic on a new alignment, while the I-95 northbound traffic was temporarily placed on the existing southbound barrel to allow space to reconstruct the northbound bridge section," Hamel said.
"The use of braced sheet-pile walls allowed for deep excavation to occur adjacent to the active bound of interstate to construct the foundations of the new bridge," he added.
The challenge also impacted phasing. The team is taking a phased approach to replace the bridge while maintaining traffic. During phase one, the team constructed a temporary bridge west of the southbound barrel of I-95.
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Once the team completed the temporary bridge, southbound traffic switched over to the new temporary bridge. The team moved northbound traffic to the old southbound bridge. Then, the team demolished and replaced the existing northbound bridge.
Upon completion of the new northbound bridge, northbound traffic will move there. Then the team will demolish and replace the southbound bridge. Upon completion of the new southbound bridge, southbound traffic will move from the temporary bridge to the new southbound bridge, and the temporary bridge will be removed.
"The intent has been to maintain two lanes of traffic in both the north and south direction of I-95 at all times during construction," Lathe said.
The team has also been creative in its approach to the project, minimizing impacts on the traveling public.
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The contractor used an extended weekend off-ramp closure to complete the reconstruction of the new I-95 barrel and off-ramp profile. The long weekend meant less traffic on I-95.
The team is also performing nighttime construction to allow increased space for work activities and to more safely access the site, given lower traffic volumes during these hours. When work is performed at night, the traveling public needs to detour.
"Due to the presence of interstate on/off ramps north and south of the Broadway Bridge, there are a number of detour connections that can be made between exits 184 and 186 to bypass the project site," Lathe said. "In general, any of the detour options around the project will add up to 2 to 5 miles in distance and 8 to 13 minutes to navigate around. However, traffic detours will only be occurring at night."
As of late 2025, the team is focusing on removing and replacing the southbound portion of the bridge.
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"The southbound portion of the bridge is situated between the two barrels of active traffic, which has further restricted access," Hamel said.
The team will utilize nighttime work to construct as much of the bridge as possible.
For those activities that cannot be conducted at night — such as oversize deliveries, pile driving, backfill installation, and concrete placements — the contractor has a different approach.
"The contractor will be utilizing escorted rolling slowdown operations on the interstate to safely enter and exit the interstate traffic from the high-speed lane," Hamel said.
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Headquartered in Hudson, Massachusetts, NEI has worked with MaineDOT on one other project. Hamel believes that the out-of-state status is helpful.
"As a contractor from out of state, they bring in new ways to perform work," Hamel said. "This work is open to public view. This will help our in-state contractors innovate new ways to stay competitive in the construction market, ultimately keeping the cost to the public as low as possible for these large projects."
NEI has approached bridge demolition in a way not seen in Maine before.
“Typically, our bridge decks are saw-cut into manageable slabs, which are then picked up with an excavator, loaded onto trucks, and hauled off,” Hamel said. “This method is relatively clean, but time consuming. The contractor hired a specialized demo subcontractor that used demolition haul trucks with topside doors, allowing the bridge to be rubblized directly into the trucks parked below. This allowed the contractor to completely remove the bridge deck in a single night operation.”
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The project's construction budget is $30.6 million. Currently, the project is on budget. The federal and state governments provided funding via the traditional 80/20 split.
Construction on the project began in the summer of 2023 and is scheduled to conclude at the end of 2026. The project is currently on schedule, despite some challenges.
"NEI has faced a learning curve when it comes to understanding the way MaineDOT contracts are written," Hamel said. "It differs considerably from what they are used to in their home state. ... However, NEI's innovation and out-of-state thinking has compensated for the time taken to learn and understand our methods of contracting."
Upon project completion, the ramps to the bridge will have additional space for vehicle queuing up to Route 15. The extra space will improve safety and reduce congestion. In addition, the bridge will be more reliable and require fewer repairs by MaineDOT.
