26 | APRIL 20 • 2023 

T

he Michigan 
Department of Trans- 
portation has long 
planned to replace the Victoria 
Park Overpass Bridge of I-696 
in Oak Park. Project manager 
Abdul Siddiqui, a senior project 
and contracts management 
engineer at MDOT, expects the 
demolition and reconstruction, 
to begin in the spring of 2025, 
and to conclude by the fall or 
winter of 2026.
Motorists on I-696 notice 
huge icicles hanging from the 
bridge. This occurs whenever 
nighttime temperatures dip 
below freezing and daytime 
temperatures rise above freez-
ing — often in spring and fall, 
and recently in winter as well. 
According to MDOT, they 
present a safety risk as serious 
injury could occur if the ice flies 
through a driver’s windshield.

For decades, MDOT has 
had to close the highway for 
quarter-hour stretches to 
give work crews access to the 

underside of the bridge to clear 
those icicles from above the 
highway. According to Michael 
Frezell, deputy communications 
director at MDOT, “We spend 
around $300,000 a year knock-
ing those down.
” 
Of course, the highway clos-
ings inconvenience motorists, 
too. Diane Cross, MDOT 
spokesperson, points out that 
roughly “120,000 drivers a day 
use 696 underneath this pedes-
trian bridge, and we’ve got to 
deal with that situation with the 
icicles.
”
 When the bridge opened 
in 1988, it was nearly unique. 
Hardly any communities had 
constructed a broad plaza 
directly over a highway. The 
plaza answered a deep need of 
the Jewish community, which 
the highway threatened to split 
in two. Sabbath-observant Jews 
especially benefitted from the 
opportunity to walk from one 
side of Oak Park to the other. 

Zach Kolodin, Michigan’s 

chief infrastructure officer, says 
that “with travel on Sabbath 
being done exclusively on foot, 
Victoria Park Plaza bridge over 
I-696 is especially important 
to the community’s thriving 
Orthodox Jewish population.
” 

But the physical bridge, sup-
ported by structural units of 
side-by-side box beams, proved 
inadequate. According to 
Siddiqui, this design has many 
joints; water from rain or thaws 
collects at low points directly 
above the joints and leaks down 
toward the road. In cold weath-
er, these leaks freeze in long 
icicles. 
Repeated extensive — and 
expensive — projects to solve 
the icicles problem proved dis-
appointing. The new bridge will 
be supported by I-beams with 
a fully reinforced deck. “We’re 
reducing the number of joints 
significantly,
” Siddiqui says. 
According to Frezell, “
A 
substantial concrete deck will 
be placed on top of the beams. 

The surface of the deck will be 
sloped in such a way to channel 
drainage away from the bridge 
joints.
”

ACCESS DURING 
CONSTRUCTION
MDOT says that pedestrians 
will have access across to the 
other side of Church Street 
during demolition and con-
struction. Treating the bridge as 
two separate halves will enable 
MDOT to keep a route open for 
pedestrians at all times. 
The design team has not 
finalized plans for the features 
of the new plaza. At public 
meetings in the winter of 2021, 
and on their website since then, 
MDOT has invited community 
members to suggest features 
that they want to see in the new 
bridge plaza. Siddiqui notes that 
the community wants “to keep 
what is there currently . . . the 
play structures and the grassy 
areas.
” 
He also notes that “people 

PHOTOS COURTESY COURTESY OF MDOT

Construction expected to begin in 2025.

MDOT to Replace Oak Park’s 
Victoria Park Overpass Bridge 

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

OUR COMMUNITY
A view from above 
of Victoria Park 
and Church Street

