Removal of the last pieces of the old Johnson Street Bridge steel has been pushed back until next month.
Officials had been hoping the giant crane known as the Dynamic Beast could return this week, but the crane is now not available until the weekend of June 8, said bridge-replacement project director Jonathan Huggett.
Huggett said the crane “is in constant demand.”
The heavy-lift crane is needed to remove four pieces of steel: the 180-tonne counterweight truss, the 335-tonne tower truss, the 160-tonne east span and the 90-tonne west span.
The lift work, to be done over a weekend, will likely require four one-hour closings of the new bridge while the steel is in the air, Huggett said.
“We’ve got four lifts. As soon as this stuff is actually off the ground, we will generally shut down traffic out of an abundance of caution. Normally, we would say for an hour,” Huggett said.
“Exact timing is difficult because as soon as they’re ready to go, we’ll shut it down. But, hopefully, most of this is going to be on the weekend.”
Huggett said the new bridge has been working flawlessly as work has continued to finish the overall project.
All of the old concrete counterweight has been jack-hammered out and removed.
On the east (downtown) side of the bridge, crews have been attaching rigging to the old steel to enable it to be lifted, and, beginning Monday, workers will be cutting the concrete deck off the east-side approach — something expected to take about two weeks.
The west side has been excavated for the new plaza to final elevation. Over the next two weeks, crews will construct a new wall to separate access to the plaza from the access to the new bridge’s pedestrian walkway.
Huggett said the bridge’s south-side pedestrian walkway probably won’t be open until mid-July. “On the east side, we’ve got to get the old bridge off, then excavate the east-side abutment,” he said.
