By Sarah Wallace

St. Louis bridge construction on target for completion

Jun 11, 2014 | 7:03 AM

The St. Louis Bridge has had its fair share of delays over the past year or so.

Last March, of last year the steel bridge girders were damaged while being transported to the work side.

With bridge work now underway, officials said they are on target to have the bridge completed by this fall.

Mark Rathwell, senior communications consultant with the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, said right now there are three things going on.

“Grading work is still happening with the roadway that leads to and from the bridge, that work should be wrapped up in the near future. All this is dependent on weather of course.”

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The surfacing work will get underway when the grading is complete.

“They’re still prepping the deck for concrete pouring because you’re essentially pouring a concrete slab in the air you have to ensure that the form is strong enough to hold not only the concrete, but the equipment that’s going to be used for the pouring and the smoothing and all that sort of work that goes on,” Rathwell explained.

He said workers are doing their “due diligence” to ensure the surface is ready for the deck to be poured and he expects work to being soon on that.

Weather always plays a factor in this kind of work and Rathwell said it’s been raining and cloudy in their work area.

He said “that will slow things down not just the day it’s raining but you need time for everything to dry out which can slow things up.”

The other piece of work going on is on the abutment slabs, which are concrete slabs not physically part of the bridge structure but are help for parts of the bridge’s overall structure.

“There’s a bunch of things sort of happening in unison as the work moves along but the project manager tells me they are still on track to have the bridge to be ready in the fall.”

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid