High Rise Bridge

High Rise Bridge
High Rise Bridge
I-64
Crosses	Southern Branch Elizabeth River
Locale	Chesapeake
History
Construction start	1969
Opened	1972
Statistics
Daily traffic	73,000
Location

The High Rise Bridge is a four-lane,

Downtown and Midtown Tunnel began tolling in 2014. Other non-interstate alternate routes include the Gilmerton Bridge on U.S. Route 13 (US 13; Military Highway), as well as the tolled Jordan Bridge

in Portsmouth.

Because of the high impact a bridge opening has on traffic, the bridge only opens on a 24-hour advanced notice unless the scheduled lift time is during the bridge's restricted hours of 6–9 am and 3–6 pm, when a three-day notice is required. The current reconstruction project intends to produce a fixed bridge with 100 feet (30 m) clearance, expected to significantly reduce traffic delays associated with bridge lifts.[2]

History

On Wednesday November 10, 2010 after the 2:30 opening the bridge was stuck in the up position causing widespread traffic delays. It was later attributed to an electrical outage during a lift at 2:30 p.m.. That failure caused a malfunction in the bridge's lift mechanism which caused the bridge to not close completely. Engineers had to manually lower the span back together, and reopened the bridge some three and a half hours later, at 6:00 pm.^[3]

In 2016, the

I-64 Southside Widening Project. As of October 2016, the plan is in Phase I, which would improve the corridor six lanes and build the new four lane Outer Loop bridge, which carries I-64 towards Chesapeake/Norfolk. The project is currently in Design–build status, and contract phase of 2017 has been completed^[4]^[5]^[6] and completion done in July 2022.^[7]^[8]