The Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge is a concrete

box girder A box girder or tubular girder (or box beam) is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, as opposed to an i-beam, - or H-beam. Originally constructed of wrought iron joined by riveting, they are now made of rolled steel, rolled ...

highway bridge which spans the West Passage of

Narragansett Bay Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound covering , of which is in Rhode Island. The bay forms New England's largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor and includes a small archipelago. S ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It is part of Rhode Island Route 138 and is on the route to

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...

for traffic heading northbound from

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

Construction and design

The bridge is named for Italian explorer

Giovanni da Verrazzano Giovanni da Verrazzano ( , ; often misspelled Verrazano in English; 1491–1528) was an Italian ( Florentine) explorer of North America, who led most of his later expeditions, including the one to America, in the service of King Francis I of ...

. Construction began in 1985 and was completed in 1992, originally consisting of two undivided lanes and built alongside the Jamestown Bridge which had served the same route since 1940. The older bridge was demolished in April 2006. It is a post-tensioned, double-cell concrete

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...

with four travel lanes separated by a concrete

Jersey barrier A Jersey barrier, Jersey wall, or Jersey bump is a modular concrete or plastic barrier employed to separate lanes of traffic. It is designed to minimize vehicle damage in cases of incidental contact while still preventing vehicle crossovers resu ...

. It links

North Kingstown, Rhode Island North Kingstown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States, and is part of the Providence metropolitan area. Its population was 27,732 in the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. North Kingstown is the birthplace of American ...

with the island town of Jamestown, Rhode Island, with a total length of . It has safety walkways on both sides, which are not accessible to pedestrians. The bridge was listed as structurally deficient in 2007, despite being only 15 years old at the time, due to small cracks found in some of the box girder segments. The cracks were repaired in 2008. Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge 2015

References

External links

Steve Anderson's Bostonroads.com: Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge (RI 138)

Inspection and Maintenance of the bridge

Bridge history
{{Narragansett Bay Road bridges in Rhode Island Narragansett Bay Bridges in Newport County, Rhode Island Bridges in Washington County, Rhode Island Box girder bridges in the United States Concrete bridges in the United States Buildings and structures in Jamestown, Rhode Island Buildings and structures in North Kingstown, Rhode Island Bridges completed in 1992 1992 establishments in Rhode Island