Significant Progress Made on New Bridge as Pile Driving Operations Conclude
In January, crews completed pile driving operations for the concrete piles supporting the new High Rise Bridge. Many of these piles are 100 feet or longer and would span six miles from end to end if they were laid flat on the ground.
To the east of the river (closest to Virginia Beach), crews have successfully installed all of the bridge beams for 16 spans, which represents more than 40% of the entire bridge length (as seen in above photo). There are a total of 37 bridge spans that will be constructed to complete the new High Rise Bridge.
In the river, crews are constructing the piers and pier caps that will later support the bridge decks, along with the new fender system at the channel which is nearly complete.
The new bridge is expected to be finished in the summer of 2022. When the new bridge is completed, all I-64 west traffic (heading towards Virginia Beach) will be shifted to the new bridge, while two lanes of I-64 traffic remain on the existing bridge, to allow crews to reconfigure the current bridge to carry all eastbound traffic (towards Suffolk). At the completion of the project, the new bridge will carry three lanes of westbound traffic towards Virginia Beach and the current bridge will be reconfigured to carry three lanes of eastbound traffic towards Suffolk (two general purpose lanes and one express lane in each direction).