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