EDMONTON – After a one-year delay, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. City officials say there’s been significant progress at the Walterdale Bridge site.
The steel arches are starting to come together and the next big step will come mid to late November.
Ryan Teplitsky with the City of Edmonton says “We aren’t there yet by any means. We have the most complicated part of the project coming forward.”
That’s when the arches will be rolled out onto rails, onto a huge barge and maneuvered up the river. Cranes will help attach it to pieces on either side of the river.
Part of the further delay was due to water levels. Floating a 950-tonne arch needs a river that’s at least 2.1 metres deep.
“The contractor went ahead with the dredging just to make sure we’d be able to get the barges across. There’s a lot of work making sure we have the arch ready. There’s a lot of geometry to check and survey,” explains Allan Bartman with City Roads Design & Construction.
The reason for the original delay was the steel required to build the new bridge arrived months later than planned.
The city is still aiming for an opening date for the fall of 2016.
Construction on the bridge started at the beginning of 2013.
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