Great River Bridge (Westfield)
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Great River Bridge | |
|---|---|
 Great River Bridge | |
| Coordinates | 42°7′44″N 72°44′45″W / 42.12889°N 72.74583°W |
| Carries |   US 202 / Route 10 |
| Crosses | Westfield River |
| Locale | Westfield, Massachusetts |
| Maintained by | Westfield |
| Characteristics | |
| Design | polygonal Warren through truss |
| Material | Steel |
| No. of spans | 2 |
| Piers in water | 1 |
| History | |
| Construction start | 1938 (south-bound) 2007 (north-bound) |
| Construction end | 1939 (south-bound) 2009 (north-bound) |
| Location | |
 | |
The Great River Bridge in Westfield, Massachusetts, is a pair of camelback truss spans over the Westfield River carrying US 202 / Route 10. The original bridge was completed in 1939, and a second bridge was finished in 2009.
Begun after a flood in 1938 and completed the next year, the original bridge was the main north–south crossing of the river for seventy years.
With time, however, the span became a bottleneck that figuratively split the city. Starting no later than the 1970s, people started talking about taking some sort of action, and the result was the construction of a similar bridge 150 feet (46 m) downstream of the original, begun in 2007.[1] The new bridge opened for traffic and the old one was closed for renovation on August 18, 2009. The area surrounding was improved with new sidewalks, lights, and pavement.[2] The upstream (1938) bridge carries three lanes of southbound traffic, and the downstream (2007) bridge carries three lanes northbound.[1] A small park lies between the approaches on both sides of the river.
One previous constraint was a low rail bridge to the north of the original span, which required trucks to take a circuitous route to get across the river. This bridge was replaced by a new one just south of the original, but still north of the original river crossing, with more elevation so that trucks could access the southbound (upstream) span.[1]
In 2017, work began on conversion of the abandoned train bridge, upstream of the two road bridges, to a rail trail as part of the Columbia Greenway's final extension. The trail will connect to the bridge's parks.[3]
