Moving a 50-ton concrete slab into place is no easy task, but as of Tuesday, 53 of 78 – or 68 per cent – of the slabs that make up the Mercier Bridge deck were in place.
“We lift it up and hopefully everything fits,” Sterling Deer, the co-owner of the Mohawk Bridge Consortium, told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The blitz is on to finish the repair work on the federal portion of the span.
Seventy-eight new slabs are scheduled to be installed, covered with asphalt and painted by Aug. 21.
“We are actually three days ahead of schedule and that’s why we’re really happy how it’s progressing with all the project,” said Catherine Tremblay of the Jacques-Cartier and Champlain Bridges Inc.
Dozens of people from the Mohawk Bridge Consortium have been working on the nearly two-kilometre span of the bridge – above the Saint Lawrence seaway – for the last eight years.
More than 80,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day.
Many motorists are forced to drive on reduced lanes as workers push to get the final stretch of the job done.
“We do our best to make sure there are always lanes open. We never delay traffic,” said Mark Standup of the Mohawk Bridge Consortium.
The new decks being added to the federal portion of the bridge are supposed to last for another 75 years.
The provincial portion still needs to be rebuilt.
Keeping the bridge intact is critically important, not just for the cars above, but also for maritime traffic below.
Nearby passenger rail trains likely wouldn’t be able to handle a surge in commuters if the Mercier Bridge had to close for an extended period of time.
“You know, if they didn’t do a retrofit like they did now, and started in 2008, it would have been a concern – structurally – to continue to use the bridge,” Deer said.
Forty piers on the federal side still have to be reinforced and that could take another 10 years.
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