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The Utah Department of Transportation's ambitious bridge replacement plan for I-80 stalled a week ago. Now crews are making a second attempt at putting a bridge in place on I-80 over Highland Drive.
Bridge crews faced a long night of work ahead of them on Monday, but they expect success Tuesday morning. UDOT's Nile Easton said, "We had that glitch where we had the problems with the beams. We worked that out, so hopefully from here on out it's smooth sailing, and we get these done really quickly."
Crews were set to close 1300 East over I-80 just after 10 p.m. Monday in order to have the bridge deck in place Tuesday morning. It's hard to believe they can pull off a project like this and keep the traffic flowing on I-80, but that's the idea behind building the bridges off-site and then moving them into place.
Ten days ago, as bridge builders moved the massive deck to Highland Drive on I-80, before they could place it, a problem stopped progress. Engineers spotted a buckle in one of the support I-beams, which are used to carry the bridge. Crews stopped and a day later moved the bridge back to the bridge farm at 1300 East to replace the beams.
UDOT's Nile Easton said, "Those actually support the bridge while it's moving, and those are what we had to replace. They weigh about 70,000 pounds."
Those big beams now are ready to go. When UDOT halted the operation, the building team was confident it could have place the bridge without problems but decided not to take any risks with the lives of the crew members.
This bridge is the first of seven to be placed this summer, so the project manager wanted to be certain of success. A Lindon company made the new red beams and pushed the job, or UDOT may have stalled a couple of more weeks.
"We have checked everything twice," Easton said. "We're confident this time we're going to get it in."
Around 11 p.m., crews plan to start to move the deck along I-80 to a staging area at Highland Drive. They'll start to move the bridge into place at 8 a.m. Tuesday.
"Those beams that we'll use, we'll have from here on out. Having them new is going to help us make sure we get this right for all the other bridge decks," Easton said.
Monday night, one lane remained open in each direction on I-80. During the placement Tuesday morning, two lanes in each direction should remain open.
For an update tune in to Eyewitness News Today and KSL Newsradio 102.7FM/1160AM.
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
