The William Street over Flint Creek Bridge Replacement Project was recently awarded the 2008 American Public Works Association (APWA) Monroe-Genesee Valley Branch Transportation Project of the Year award and an APWA New York Chapter Structures Project of the Year award.

Barton & Loguidice, P.C., was recognized as the engineer having provided full preliminary and final design services. Ramsey Construction was recognized as the contractor for this project.

This $1.2 million project was initiated by the Ontario County Department of Public Works in cooperation with NYSDOT Region 4. The project was funded by the FHWA TEA-21 bond program (80 percent), the NYSDOT Marchiselli bond program (15 percent), and local funding (5 percent).

The existing William Street structure was a multiple steel girder superstructure with a cast-in-place concrete deck supported by gravity abutments. The bridge site is located in a ravine-like setting with hard bedrock at the stream grade. The steel girder superstructure was deteriorated, and the abutments were poorly aligned with the stream creating scour concerns.

The project incorporated an historic structural design element, in the form of the arch that is rarely constructed as a cast-in-place element. The adjacent bridges upstream and downstream, located within the same setting, are arch structures inspiring the form for the proposed structure.

The project schedule was driven by the annual Sauerkraut Festival held in the Village of Phelps every year on the first weekend in August. To accommodate the festival, the bridge was opened to pedestrian traffic prior to the festival to provide another route between the center of the village and the festival grounds.

The existing substructures were removed with explosive demolition to expedite the schedule and reduce costs. Also, the existing bridge carried a Village of Phelps water line that had been shut down due to leaks. As part of the project the county replaced the water line over the bridge, tying into valves adjacent to the bridge. The structure of the funding for this project limited the water line replacement to the bridge portion of the project only. The county and village coordinated the replacement of the remaining portion of the water line along William Street by village crews.

Construction was completed in 2008.