For the last few weeks, the view looking north from the Warren River Bridge has been partially obstructed by an enormous steel structure. 

The cage-like creation is, in fact, a modular steel panel bridge, and once it is fully assembled it will span the width of the river and form one of the two new East Bay Bike Path bridges.

Charles St. Martin, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, said the bridge was fabricated by Acrow Corporation and is designed to be erected on land and progressively rolled out over the waterway. 

“This approach doesn’t require the use of cranes,” St. Martin said, adding that cranes would be limited in that location given the overhead power lines. Most bridge projects, St. Martin said, rely heavily on the use of cranes. 

The new modular steel panel bridge will weigh 316,000 pounds when fully constructed. 

“The project is progressing well and RIDOT anticipates it will be completed on schedule in Summer 2026,” St. Martin said. 

Aetna Bridge Company is installing the bike path bridge spanning the Warren River. St. Martin said construction of the bike path bridge for the Barrington River will take place this fall. 

Long time coming

Construction of the new East Bay Bike Path bridges has been years in the making. 

The state closed the old bike path bridges — they were repurposed train trestle bridges — back in 2019. The initial plan was to put the project out for bid in the spring of 2021; the state also dedicated more than $10 million for the work. 

The project hit a snag in April 2021 as officials announced that the price tag for the work was going to be $25 million. State officials shifted gears and decided to install a wooden boardwalk atop the motor vehicle bridges as a detour for the bike path. Barrington officials pushed back on the wooden boardwalks, and eventually the state agreed to replace the bike path bridges with permanent structures.

There was another brief delay in the fall of 2024 as officials from Coastal Resources Management Council aired concerns about the bridge designs. Specifically, CRMC was concerned that the new bridges would be narrower — the new bridges are 14 feet wide, as opposed to the old bridges which were 18 feet wide. Officials believed the narrower bridges could pose a problem for people fishing off the bike path bridges. 

A set of revised plans include two new public fishing spots near the East Bay Bike Path bridges — one is a permanent bulkhead that will be built into the western side of the Warren River. A new fishing pier will be included on the western side of the Barrington River.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that the new fishing pier would be built on the eastern side of the Barrington River.