J.R. Vinagro Corp. Leads Project to Replace Tower Hill Road Bridge, More

J.R. Vinagro Corp. is leading a $38.5 million project to replace the Tower Hill Road Bridge in Rhode Island. The project, which also includes resurfacing a portion of U.S. Route 1, aims to improve infrastructure and address safety concerns for the heavily traveled route to the state's beaches. The new bridge is 80 ft. in length, reduced from the original 167-ft. span, with construction utilizing innovative methods to minimize traffic disruptions.

October 30, 2025 - Northeast Edition #23
Lori Tobias – CEG Correspondent

RIDOT photo

Crews backfill between the new retaining wall and wingwall with pervious fill material on the north end of the new southbound Tower Hill Road Bridge.

Crews building up the road base with gravel borrow on the south end of the new southbound Tower Hill Road Bridge. (RIDOT photo)

Here, workers place the geogrid used to reinforce backfill around the gas main on the north end of the new northbound Tower Hill Road Bridge. (RIDOT photo)

This photo depicts backfilling between the new retaining wall and wingwall on the south end of the new northbound Tower Hill Road Bridge. Crews transitioned from multiple fill types with peastone directly at the backwalls, then reinforced stone backfill under the approach slabs, then pervious fill up to the existing abutment that remains in place. (RIDOT photo)

Traffic is flowing over the new southbound Tower Hill Road Bridge while workers are backfilling both the north and south ends of the new northbound Tower Hill Road Bridge. (RIDOT photo)

A $38.5 million project on one of Rhode Island's most traveled routes to the state's beaches is wrapping up.

The Tower Hill Road project includes the replacement of the 57-year-old Tower Hill Road Bridge, which carries both southbound and northbound lanes of Tower Hill Road over Route 138 in North Kingstown, as well as resurfacing of 6.5 mi. of Tower Hill Road — US-1 — from the Route 4 split in North Kingstown to the Oliver Stedman Government Center in South Kingstown.

"The main part of the project was rapid bridge construction," said Charles St. Martin, spokesman of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). "Route 1, which sees peak volumes of about 36,000 vehicles per day, is a main thoroughfare through southern Rhode Island for summer tourism. If anyone's coming from the north and they're going to Newport or they're going to our beaches in the region we call South County, it's a very popular route. The bridge was structurally deficient, and we needed to attend to it. The bridge is critical to the whole southern Rhode Island area, so the consequences of having a closure or weight restrictions would be fairly significant for that part of the state."

The project was first identified and added to the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) in 2018. Both bridges were rated in fair to poor condition in 2021. The paving of Tower Hill Road was included in the project due to its deteriorated condition. RIDOT chose to have one single project address multiple aspects of the corridor at the same time. It went into design in 2022. Contractor J.R. Vinagro Corp. got the go-ahead to proceed with the job in November 2023 with a scheduled finish of May 2026, which it is on target to meet.

The bridge work was structured to get long weekend closures completed before Memorial Day when traffic on the road increases greatly, St. Martin said. Crews reduced Route 1 to one lane for the duration of the work. RIDOT was granted the space within the project limits to allow for the use of Self-Propelled Modular Transports (SPMT).

"This allowed the contractor the ability to build both bridges over Route 138 next to the existing bridges," said Heidi Gudmundson, RIDOT spokeswoman. "Both bridges were constructed on support towers and then later transferred to the SPMT's and rolled into place. This method allowed us to demolish and move two bridges into place over two 57-hour extended weekend closures, thus significantly limiting the traffic impacts as compared to conventional construction."

The new bridge is approximately half the size of the original bridge, now 80 ft. in length compared with the old bridge's 167-ft. span. The shorter footprint was the result of a change in the scope of bridge design over the years.

"When the bridge was originally constructed many years ago, there were potential plans to extend the highway farther to the west connecting it to the Interstate," St. Martin said. "So, some of the widths and the spaces as the bridge were constructed to allow for that future expansion. But the expansion hasn't happened and it's not going to happen. So long term, it's less infrastructure for us to maintain, and there is a savings there."

The RhodeWorks plan to repair roads and bridges was approved by the Rhode Island General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Gina M. Raimondo on February 11, 2016, according to the RIDOT website. The legislation creates a funding source allowing the transportation department to repair more than 150 structurally deficient bridges and make repairs to another 500 bridges to prevent them from becoming deficient, bringing 90 percent of the state's bridges into structural sufficiency by 2026. CEG

(All photos courtesy of RIDOT.)

Lori Tobias

Lori Tobias is a career journalist, formerly on staff as the Oregon Coast reporter at The Oregonian and as a columnist and features writer at the Rocky Mountain News. She is the author of the memoir, Storm Beat - A Journalist Reports from the Oregon Coast, and the novel Wander, winner of the Nancy Pearl Literary Award in 2017. She has freelanced for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Denver Post, Alaska Airlines in-flight, Natural Home, Spotlight Germany, Vegetarian Times and the Miami Herald. She is an avid reader, enjoys kayaking, traveling and exploring the Oregon Coast where she lives with her husband Chan and rescue pups, Gus and Lily.