All decked out

In 1994, at the age of 91, the Williamsburg Bridge was feeling its age. Hoping to keep the bridge in use for a 2nd century, the New York City Department of Transportation began a 3-year deck replacement project that included the installation of an orthotropic deck. After a comprehensive study completed in 1993, the New York bridge engineering firm Steinman Boynton Gronquist & Birdsall, consultants for the Williamsburg Bridge rehabilitation, recommended replacing the old deck with a closed-rib steel orthotropic deck bolted to the floor beams. In August 1997, the outer roadway on the south side of the Williamsburg Bridge reopened to traffic after 13 months of reconstruction.