The new Lake Champlain Bridge connecting West Addison, Vermont with Crown Point, New York was re-opened in 2011.
The former bridge on the site was imploded in 2009, after the foundation was determined to be unsafe. For months after the demolition, people had to use a temporary ferry during the construction project.
In the months after the bridge re-opened, some of the lights on the $76 million bridge stopped working.
Reporter Lohr McKinstry has been following that story for the Plattsburgh Press Republican
“Over the winter numerous complaints were phoned into the New York state Department of Transportation that various segment of lights on the bridge were out,” McKinstry explained.
The lights are in various clusters so a short circuit can’t take the whole bridge offline.
“It was a safety concern, people driving across the bridge drove from areas of darkness to areas of light,” he said. The system of lights underneath the bridge for boat traffic do still work.
The investigation found that the pull boxes that the wiring was pulled through were not properly insulated against the weather.
“Specifications called for them to be waterproofed, weatherproofed, and they were not. So ice and snow actually got in to these access boxes and caused short-circuits,” he explained.
The repairs are $500,000. The lighting for the bridge was a $1.2 million part of the construction contract.
“The wires were not cold-insulated so they became brittle in the winter. And what’s happening now is the contractor that built the bridge, the subcontractor that did the electrical, the Department of Transportation and the bridge designer are all saying that one or the other is responsible.”
It’s still unclear who will pay the bill.
Meanwhile, there’s a dispute over whether the bridge lights are too bright, and neighbors have registered complaints with the New York State DOT. So they’ll be turning the arch lights off most nights.
