MADAWASKA, Maine — The newly completed Madawaska-Edmundston bridge — a massive international bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada — has received multiple accolades.
It was ranked the number one bridge in North America for 2024 by Roads & Bridges magazine.
GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc., a Massachusetts-based engineering company that worked on the bridge, has also won a statewide award for its contributions
Roads & Bridges announced the number one ranking at the end of last year, citing how the collaboration between countries and organizations ensured the project was completed in less than a decade, when similar efforts could take between 10 and 20 years.
The old bridge, which was over a century old, was posted at five tons in 2017, forcing large trucks to travel roughly an hour out of their way via different border crossings.
The project was overseen by the Maine Department of Transportation and the New Brunswick Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (NBDTI). HNTB worked on the design and Woolwich-based contractor Reed & Reed built the bridge for $87 million.
Greg Letourneau of Reed & Reed said everyone at the company is excited to be recognized as the best in the country. He credited the collaboration between multiple entities with moving the project along.
“All entities wanted this job to succeed,” he said. “So everybody put effort into it when it came to their part, whether it was answering a design question or just coming up with a solution so we could keep moving forward.”
The biggest challenge, Letourneau said, was dealing with cold temperatures in far northern Maine.
“Our first winter up there, we frequently saw 30 below or more,” he said. “We got pretty excited when it was zero the first winter.”
COVID-19 restrictions also created challenges during the early part of the project. Now that the old bridge is completely demolished, Letourneau said the only remaining task is minor concrete work on the Canadian side.
GZA, a subcontractor for the design of the project, earlier this month received an Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Maine for its work.
The firm’s engineers designed a network of thermal integrity profiling (TIP) sensors to test the reliability of pier foundations, marking the first time that technology was used as a quality assurance tool on a Maine bridge project.
Andrew Blaisdell, associate principal and geotechnical engineer with GZA, said that while this is not the first project in Maine to use TIP, it was the first Maine DOT project where it was specified as the primary quality control tool.
Without TIP testing, he said there would have been less certainty about the quality, and the discovery of any issues could have been delayed to later in the project.
After HNTB’s final design was completed, Reed & Reed began construction on the bridge in 2021. It finally opened to large trucks over five tons last summer.
Madawaska Town Manager David Daigle said that, back in 2018, the town’s selectmen and the Edmundston City Council signed a joint resolution recognizing the shared critical importance of the bridge to their communities.
“Our families are separated by a bridge that connects our rich and vibrant culture,” he said.
Daigle said the town was heavily involved with the planning of the bridge, such as suggesting that its breakdown lanes accommodate snowmobiles, ATVs and bicycle traffic between the countries. He said this will provide a significant boost in tourism.
Edmundston Mayor Eric Marquis said positive reception to the bridge shows that great things can happen when communities work together.
With the new bridge able to accommodate truckers and soon able to accommodate multiple modes of transport, Marquis said it will likely boost travel between the two countries.
“There were some people that did not go across the bridge for different reasons, but now, having this new one ready, I think we’re going to see something really interesting in the upcoming years,” the mayor said.
Letourneau said the bridge received the most local support of any project he’s worked on. Throughout the life of the project, contractors spent money at hotels, motels, gas stations, restaurants and grocery stores.
“That’s one of the best communities in the state — the folks from northern Aroostook County in the St. John Valley,” he said. “They’re wonderful people. They’re very welcoming.”
He said they made several friends in the area, and that he is going to miss visiting northern Maine when the project wraps up.
“This is probably the best project I’ve worked on since I’ve been doing this,” he said. “And I’ve been doing this for 35 years.”
