NEW YORK – The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board, Wednesday, approved a design-build contract to allow Metro-North Railroad to replace the Third Avenue Bridge over the New Haven Line in Mount Vernon.
The existing bridge is 119 years old and is currently closed to vehicles but open to pedestrians. It carries two lanes of vehicular traffic and two sidewalks a distance of 82 feet over Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line between 1st Street and Fiske Place in downtown Mount Vernon.
“Metro-North has inherited a legacy of century-old bridges built in the 1890s by the railroad’s predecessors that need to be replaced,” said Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi. “We hope that by rebuilding bridges in the City of Mount Vernon, Metro-North can ensure that the urban fabric of Mount Vernon is connected for the century to come.”
The contract, for $10.4 million, is expected to be awarded to John Civetta & Sons, Inc., a heavy construction contracting firm based in the Bronx. The bridge replacement is expected to last 18 months.
Metro-North issued a design-build contract to expedite the project. Design-build contracts call for a single contractor to be responsible for both designing and building an entire project in order to ensure that coordination is seamless, and that work is completed in the shortest possible time.
The Third Avenue Bridge is one of six bridges across the New Haven Line in downtown Mount Vernon that are being replaced by Metro-North Railroad. The others are 14th Street Bridge, which Metro-North Railroad reopened on July 3, 2019, the Sixth Avenue Bridge and 10th Avenue Bridge, which are currently being rebuilt and expected to reopen in 2020-2021, Fulton Avenue Bridge, and South Street Bridge.
Metro-North expects to seek design-build proposals from companies next year for the replacement of the South Street Bridge and Fulton Avenue Bridge, contingent on the approval of the MTA’s proposed 2020-2024 Capital Program.
Metro-North replaced Mt. Vernon’s Park Avenue / 1st Avenue Bridge in 2011.
