The old Howard Frankland Bridge is being demolished now that traffic has shifted to the new bridge.
And it won't happen with a huge explosion, like a lot of you may think.
Instead, it'll be broken apart piece by piece over the next few months.
We spoke with David Alonso of the Florida Department of Transportation, the project manager for the new bridge's construction — and the old bridge's demolition.
He answered several questions for WUSF's Sky Lebron, including some posed by readers on WUSF's Facebook page — and some you may not have even thought about.
Portions of this interview were edited for clarity.
I don't think people understand what those costs are really look like. But just look at this way. We're building an 800 and some million-dollar new bridge, and that is more cost effective than maintaining this bridge.David Alonso, Howard Frankland project manager
The old Gandy was made into a walking bridge. The old Skyway is now a fishing pier. We've gotten some questions on our Facebook as to why this one needed to be fully demolished. Can you answer that?
I would say it's a combination of lessons learned of the past. I'm not saying those haven't been major successes, but there a lot that went into those decisions in the past that you're comparing this one to, it really comes down to cost and what FDOT does. We manage transportation of goods and services. That's what FDOT stands for in a safe format, right? So Skyway, a fishing pier, is not really in that domain, and also the cost to maintain a structure that was intended for vehicle traffic that was built back in the '60s is insane. It's a lot of money. I don't think people understand what those costs are really look like. But just look at this way. We're building an 800 and some million-dollar new bridge, and that is more cost effective than maintaining this bridge. If it weren't, we wouldn't be doing it. So if that gives you an idea to how expensive it is to try to maintain something in an extremely corrosive environment, because that's what Tampa Bay is, that was built in 1960 standards. The steel, the rebar that's in that structure is very expensive to maintain. The piles that go into the the bottom of the bay. They are exposed to this environment. They corrode. We have to add pile jackets, very expensive. So if people understood that — I think boaters understand a little bit more because they can see that side of the bridge — they wouldn't be asking those questions as much. But I understand where it's coming from. I would love for this to last forever, but, you know, it's just not practical.
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So when do we start to see stuff blow up? That's what's gonna happen, right, in this demo?
A lot of people think it's gonna blow up. I was actually in an Uber recently after a trip, and the Uber driver thought was gonna explode. He didn't know he was talking to the (project manager) and I just let him tell his story until I finally shared what was really gonna happen. I think he was a little bit bummed by it. I would love to see something like that, but it's not the best for the environment. The contractor has submitted the plans to methodically cut this up and remove it. That's what it's permitted for and so and that's what's going to take place. It's not going to be a very fat, flashy, fast operation. It's going to be months and months into early next year of removing this piece by piece.
You get that a lot, I assume, where people are like, "dude, can't wait for this thing to blow up. When can I watch it?"
Of cours. But, you know, it's pie in the sky ideas. But no, it's reality, what we do in real life. And so, yeah, there's a reason for why we're doing it the way we're doing it.
What happens to all these old pieces of bridge?
So they're going to make their way onto barges that the contractor has, and they're going to go down Tampa Bay just south of the Gandy bridge on the Hillsborough side, where they unload everything and start to process it. So these things are loaded onto the barges in just massive sizes, basically as big of a size as a crane can pick up, but those sizes are not usable for selling. So it's going to get processed into those sizes that people want to buy. This is three miles worth of bridge material. I'm sure it's going to have various applications.
Can I take a piece home? Would that be possible?
You may be able to buy a piece. I don't know all those details yet, but yeah. I mean, it's the contractor's property that he's going to process and sell, and it's all recyclable, so it's environmentally friendly.
How long does that process take?
Months and months. I'd say we're starting now. We're looking into early next year of demo completion. So, seven, eight months is what we're estimating right now. And we'll track it as it as it continues.
You just finished building a new piece of Tampa Bay history with the new Howard Frankland. How does it feel to kind of take down a piece of that history too? Something that's been so entrenched in this community?
Oh, man. It takes you back a little bit, because I didn't realize, just like every milestone in a project, they're kind of all important. The demo didn't really stand out to me as, like, super, super important. But it's a rich piece of history. It's my history now too. I was born and raised here, so it does kind of make me pause for a second and reflect on what we're about to do. I think it's inevitable. I think it actually lines up with the original vision of Howard Frankland because we are not doing away with this vision. We're actually adding to it in a in a bigger way with a new structure. So I wouldn't say it's something sad, but definitely take a pause, and we're about to see a huge historical moment here in Tampa Bay.
You get any word on how the new Howard Frankland's doing so far? I'm sure you are probably one of the main ones that want to keep updates on how it's performing, how people are satisfied with it?
So the word so far is people are happy to drive on it. It's a smoother drive. They love to see the progress being made. We've only given the public what was there originally at the time, it's the four general-use lanes. So we haven't seen that capacity increase yet; that'll happen early next year. So I would just say it's still a success story. Right now, the public is happy, and early next year they're going to see the 50% increase in capacity, where they'll really be happy.
