Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge (Connecticut)

Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge
The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, locally known as the Q Bridge, crosses over the Quinnipiac River.
Coordinates	41°17′55″N 72°54′14″W / 41.2986°N 72.9039°W / 41.2986; -72.9039
Carries	10 lanes of I-95
Crosses	Quinnipiac River
Locale	New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Maintained by	Connecticut Department of Transportation
Characteristics
Design	Extradosed bridge
Total length	4,735 ft (1,443.2 m)
Width	182 ft (55.4 m)
Height	150 ft (45.7 m)
Longest span	515 ft (157.0 m)
Clearance below	60 ft (18.3 m)
History
Opened	1958 (original span) reconstructed 2005-2015
Location

The Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, commonly referred to as the Q Bridge by locals, is an extradosed bridge that carries Interstate 95 (Connecticut Turnpike) over the mouth of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, in the U.S. state of Connecticut.^[1] This bridge replaced the original 1,300 m (0.8 mi) span which opened on January 2, 1958. The old bridge had a girder and floorbeam design where steel beams supported a concrete bridge deck that carried three lanes of traffic in each direction with no inside or outside shoulders. The bridge was officially dedicated as the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in 1995 to commemorate the attack on Pearl Harbor.^[2]

The old Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge was replaced by a $554 million 10-lane extradosed bridge; the northbound span of which opened to traffic on June 22, 2012. Southbound traffic was shifted onto the new bridge, sharing the northbound span with northbound traffic until the new southbound span was completed in late 2015. Since the Gibbs Street Bridge in Portland, Oregon was redesigned from an extradosed span to a box girder bridge, the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge was the first extradosed bridge completed in the United States when it fully opened in September 2015.^[3] The new bridge is the centerpiece of a $2 billion megaproject called the New Haven Harbor Crossing Improvement Program.