The Madawaska-Edmundston International Bridge serves two bilingual towns that act as one community, with the bridge offering critical connectivity. Following an inspection in 2016, the bridge load capacity was reduced to five tons, requiring all truck traffic to detour to the next border crossing approximately 20 miles away. Recognizing this would become a significant hardship on the communities, MaineDOT selected HNTB to rapidly evaluate and design a replacement structure within four years.
“Designing an international bridge involves many stakeholders on both sides of the border,” said Josh Olund, HNTB Project Manager. “The Madawaska-Edmundston International Bridge was even more unique in that the stakeholders also included railroad operators, the Twin Rivers Paper Company, which has operations on both sides of the border, the First Nations indigenous community, among others who utilized this bridge for their daily needs. HNTB and our partners held numerous coordination meetings and several bilingual public meetings to ensure the project met the needs of the communities.”
The new bridge was relocated and positioned diagonally across the St. John River to accommodate the move of the U.S. Land Port of Entry (LPOE) to a new location to the west of its former facility. In addition to working in the cold climate, designing the bridge on the steep river valley had its challenges, including difficult site access and fluctuating water levels with heavy ice floes. Significant coordination was required to establish the new abutment locations while balancing needs of the railroads, port facilities, underground utilities, physical constraints of the existing and proposed structures, and the timing of overlapping construction projects and work sites. Pedestrian access was maintained through minor construction phasing, security fencing, temporary lighting, and reduced shoulder widths during construction.
HNTB also worked with MaineDOT to implement a “contractor in design” approach by engaging three contractors during the final design process to aid in constructability assessments and to provide input on site access, staging locations, foundation types, construction risk, and project schedule, among other items.
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“We are excited to see the new Madawaska-Edmundston International Bridge open and safely and efficiently serving the people and businesses in both Maine and New Brunswick,” said Paul Merrill, Director of Communications at MaineDOT. “The difficult climate and environmental conditions of this bridge location, plus the concurrent construction of the U.S. LPOE made for a challenging project. HNTB was timely in assessing and delivering a design replacement structure within just four years — all with the support of numerous stakeholders."
The new bridge is a six-span, steel four-girder system that supports two lanes of traffic, 6-foot shoulders for multimodal traffic, and a 6-foot sidewalk for pedestrians.
