I-95 Rappahannock River Bridges

High Structural Erectors was the steel erector for the twin I-95 mainline bridges over the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia, a stretch of interstate that carries traffic between Richmond and northern Virginia and cannot simply be closed.

The Virginia Department of Transportation replaced the southbound and northbound structures in sequence, each a 1,200-foot weathering steel plate girder bridge. High Steel Structures fabricated 5,125 tons of girders across the two projects, and High Structural Erectors set them. Southbound erection ran from 2018 into 2020; the northbound structure followed from 2020 into 2022. Wagman Heavy Civil was the general contractor.

Sequencing was the defining constraint. Girders had to arrive, be picked and be set in an order that kept the river crossing and the adjacent travel lanes working throughout, across four construction seasons and two separate structures.

Fabricated in Lancaster by High Steel Structures and set in the field by High Structural Erectors, the Rappahannock bridges show what the two companies do together: one shop, one field crew, one point of coordination from the mill order through the last girder set.