Q Bridge

New Haven, CT

Project Description

The new Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge (commonly known as Q-Bridge because it crosses the mouth of the Quinnipiac River at New Haven Harbor) was part of a $2.2 Billion effort by the Connecticut Dept. of Transportation to relieve congestion and upgrade aging infrastructure in New Haven. The bridge is part of the heavily traveled I-95 northeast corridor between New York and Boston. The original Q-Bridge was built in the late 1950's for 40,000 vehicles per day, less than a third of the 140,000 vehicles the bridge currently sees each day. The new Q-Bridge is a signature structure for the State of Connecticut and is the first extradosed bridge constructed in the United States. Each of the two bridges has two planes of stays that fan out as the bridge changes width from one end to the other. The new cast-in-place bridges can carry 5 lanes of traffic in each direction.