The original John Greenleaf Whittier bridge was built in 1951, and at some point every local has driven across the old green Whittier bridge. In December of 2015 construction crews began to tear down the bridge and by June 15th of 2016 the last piece of steel was removed. Now as 2017 draws to a close, the new bridges are finishing up being built and are open to be driven on.

The construction of the bridges have been going for two years now. With many road diversion, slowed traffic, and closed lanes the bridges have been worked on heavily. The construction has not been an easy one, with two years of harsh winters and varying weather conditions the construction crews had to work through storms.

The biggest challenge of the project is finding a way to get all highway traffic going over the river without shutting down the highway completely. The people working found the solution; they would divert all traffic to one bridge, making it become single lane or slightly more, then tear down the previous bridge. From there, a new bridge was built, one six lanes wide, allowing for traffic to be one one giant bridge while the second original one was demolished and the new one was built in its place.

As of the beginning of december people were officially allowed to cross the second new bridge; this brought construction to a close. Now the construction crews are cleaning up after their big project while cars fly by on the brand new Whittier bridge.