Ralph Wilson Park Bridge Takes a Trip to Buffalo

The newly forged pedestrian bridge for Ralph Wilson Jr. Park has been slowly but surely making its way across upstate New York via the historic Erie Canal over the past 10 days, pushed by tugboats on two barges through a series of 36 locks.

After some delays due to weather and unique challenges due to its size, it is now between Rochester and Buffalo, and is expected to arrive at the park’s Lake Erie shore in downtown Buffalo on Tuesday.

This unusual journey has generated an explosion of attention on social networks, arousing growing interest from curious people at every stage.

And the Ralph Wilson Park Conservancy is taking advantage of the attention to coordinate a grand ceremony for his arrival, as officials seek to build momentum for the larger $110 million project to transform the former LaSalle Park into a new landmark attraction that will connect downtown Buffalo, the waterfront and two West Side communities.

“There’s a lot of interest in the Lockport area,” said Katie Campos, the Conservancy’s executive director.

The bridge is a key part of this transformation, as it aims to provide a safer and more attractive connection between the park and the Fourth Street neighbourhood across the Niagara Thruway.

It will be erected in early October on the northeast side of the park and will cross the highway and CSX Corp. railroad tracks to a redesigned Fourth Street park, providing Lower West Side residents with access to both parks.

But first, he has to get here.

“We’re in constant contact with the captain,” Campos said of the Carver Marine Towing crew, which consists of two 200-foot-long barges and a tugboat. “They’re really providing day-to-day estimates.”

The imminent arrival of the bridge marks the culmination of a much longer journey that began with its manufacture in Italy and a voyage across the ocean.

The 260-foot-long bridge was designed by Schlaich Bergmann Partners through a community competition organized by the University at Buffalo Regional Institute. It features an arch structure with a closed steel arch and architectural cutouts on the vertical steel sides to protect pedestrians from noise and traffic below and to pay homage to Buffalo’s industrial past, the Conservancy said.

The bridge was built by Italian company Cimolai, a global bridge contractor that recently set up a manufacturing plant in Olean. The bridge weighs 220 tons.

The ship was shipped in four pieces by ship from Italy and arrived in New York Harbor on June 22, before beginning its journey up the Hudson River. It left Coeymans Harbor, just south of Albany, on July 5 and entered the Mohawk River and Erie Canal just north of Albany, on two 200-foot-long ships and a tugboat, each with three workers and a captain.

Since then, barges have plying the various rivers and small lakes that make up the 199-year-old canal, which was originally designed to support commercial shipping between New York and the Great Lakes but has long since been bypassed by other means of transportation, including the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is now largely used for recreational boating, with limited commercial traffic.

Campos said the Conservancy was excited to deliver the bridge using the canal, given the waterway’s historical legacy and the upcoming bicentennial.

But it turned out to be the only practical way to deliver it, she said. Truck and rail options were ruled out because of the size and height of the bridge pieces, which would not have fit under many highway and rail crossings.

But it’s also not the most efficient way, especially because of the change in terrain. The two barges had to slowly traverse the winding canal, stopping at each lock so the boats could be hoisted to the next level. In total, a boat traveling from Albany to Buffalo must rise 565 feet, and each lock passage takes at least 15 minutes.

“We’re moving forward one lock at a time,” the Carver Marine team posted on Instagram.

increase or decrease the water level to allow boats to pass between two different heights, over what would otherwise be a waterfall. In a lock, there are two giant gates at each end, with large valves or pumps to let water in or out. A boat enters at one end, the giant gates close behind it, the lock raises or lowers the water level, and then the boat comes out the other side.

In this case, some of the locks were not wide enough for the two barges to pass through together, side by side or one behind the other. So the trip required going through them one at a time, with the tug often reversing to pick up the second boat further along. Some sections of the canal are also shallower or have tight turns, requiring more careful navigation. And sometimes, crews had to pull the barges by hand.

“For three people to do all this work, it’s an incredible job,” Campos said. “They work 12 to 14 hours a day, taking advantage of every inch of sunlight they can, which is really impressive. If a barge needs to go through without a tug, the men pull the barge through the canal to the lock.”

by the narrowness of the canal in the western part of the state, which “has not been used for commercial traffic for some time,” the Carver team noted.

Upon arrival at the park’s shoreline, the four pieces of the bridge will be lifted by a giant red-boom crane that has been erected at the edge of the park and lowered to the ground in the proper order. Workers will weld the pieces together, paint the bridge, and transport it as a single unit across the park, where it will be lifted into its final position on the night of October 6.