Governor Ned Lamont and Connecticut Transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto say:
- Crews from the Connecticut Department of Transportation and contractors stayed at the site of the Fairfield Avenue Bridge throughout Friday night and continued working through the early hours of Saturday morning when additional equipment needed to remove the damaged bridge arrived.
- Crews were able to complete demolition of the bridge by 12:30 p.m. today.
- Following demolition, crews then began working to clean up all the debris and materials from the bridge off the highway. They also began making necessary repairs to the highway to ensure that it is safe for vehicular traffic.
- The Connecticut Department of Transportation estimates that the northbound lanes of I-95 will reopen to vehicles by 8 p.m. tonight (Saturday).
- All southbound lanes of the highway will remain closed to vehicles through the day on Sunday, May 5, because the pavement on this side of the highway was so damaged from the Thursday morning crash that those lanes need to be milled and repaved.
“Crews are making great progress in Norwalk and I am encouraged that we’ll have one side of I-95 open later tonight,” Governor Lamont said.
“Completely removing that bridge in less than 36 hours is an impressive feat and is credit to the hard work and dedication of the contractors and Connecticut Department of Transportation crews, who are pushing to get the entire highway fully reopened in both directions by Monday morning.”
As of 7:20 p.m. Saturday night, the entire Fairfield Avenue overpass in Norwalk had been removed.
“I continue to be thankful to the CTDOT crews and contractors who are working as hard as they can to get this highway reopened,” Commissioner Eucalitto said. “They made great progress today and I remain optimistic that we will meet our Monday morning deadline. I ask the public to remain patient with the ongoing traffic congestion and to continue using alternate routes and public transportation throughout the weekend.”
“I remain completely impressed with the response from our Norwalk Fire Department, Norwalk Police Department, and the State of Connecticut, including Governor Lamont’s Office, the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the Connecticut Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security and our State Police,” Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling said. “The fact that there were no injuries from the accident and that crews are working incredibly quickly to remove the bridge so we can reopen I-95 in both directions as soon as possible is a testament to Governor Lamont’s leadership and the high level of collaboration between each agency and level of government. I also want to thank our Norwalk residents and business community for their patience, as I know these temporary closures have been a complete inconvenience to their lives.”
A live video feed showing the ongoing work can be accessed at https://share.earthcam.net/CTDOTNorwalkbridge.
I still don’t understand what caused the accident…if someone has info from a reliable source. please explain
This is great news for the suffering residents of the Bridge Street/Greens Farms/ Imperial Ave neighborhoods…let us hope the south bound I-95 lanes are open before school opens Monday morning.
Fortunately Deputy Chief Paulson promptly cut truckers off from a left turn onto Greens Farms Road after learning of numerous big trucks over running sidewalks on Bridge and Imperial.
The short stretch of Bridge St has 16 daily school bus stops.
This has been an abrupt and startling introduction to what a full bore CTDOT replacement on the Cribari Bridge would bring to residential Westport.
I clicked on the camera link just a moment before the northbound lanes were opened. The amount of dirt kicked up by the vehicles is creating a real visibility hazard. They should reduce the speed to 25-30MPH until that abates. Fascinating to watch!
I saw this explaining how the accident occurred.
https://www.wtnh.com/news/demolition-continues-this-weekend-after-the-i-95-closure/amp/
Great job by DOT cleaning up the mess!
I moved to Fairfield County Connecticut 10 years ago from Southern California where badly congested Interstate and highway traffic was invented. After I witnessed the I95 disaster of a traffic congestion disaster I told many of friends and new Connecticut aquaintences that the developing traffic growth on this southern Connecticut I95 corri
dor would become the biggest impediment to Connecticuts economic viability and future!
When tolling the massive over crowded fleets of out of state and interstate was to politically damaging to so many Connecticut politicians even though every state surrounding Connecticut tolls these trucks the problem has gotten worse and more dangerous. I even sent letters to CT DOT, then Gov Malloy and his successor Gov Lamont asking them to please look into metered onramps like those that have been in years of successful traffic congestion mitigation in California! Not one response, answer or acknowledgement of the question. Their are definite pinch point traffic merge and onramp problems in Stamford, Norwalk Bridgeport, New Haven and additional ramps where timed metering will greatly improve merging traffic stoppages and keep truck and vehicle traffic moving smoother, faster and safer. The I95 to Highway 8 interchange needs reconfiguration NOW!
Either state legislators in Hartford, our Congressional representatives in DC and our illustrious back slapping govenors and turtle speed officials at CT DOT get off their asses and move the I95 ticking time bomb up to the NUMBER 1 PRIORITY OF THE THINGS TO DO LIST IN CONNECTICUT!
Spot on Mr. Broadly. We subsidize the Amazon fleet and every other company using trucks to ship stuff we don’t need. Time for tolls to be reinstated.
Yikes- it looks like the paving and painting lane lines are completed. Waiting for final inspection and approval to reopen southbound as well???