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SALT LAKE CITY — A section of I-80 that runs through Sugar House will be temporarily closed twice over the weekend as construction crews place beams for a new bridge over the freeway at 1300 East, Utah Department of Transportation officials said Thursday.
The freeway will be closed in both directions between 700 East and Foothill Drive, from 9 p.m. Friday to about 9 a.m. Saturday and then again from 9 p.m. Saturday to 9 a.m. Sunday, which is expected to result in "heavy travel delays," according to the agency.
Crews will use a pair of cranes to lift nearly a dozen 174-foot-long, 70,000-pound steel girders into position for the new bridge, said UDOT project manager Becky Stromness. She explained that it's the third step in the bridge-building process, after crews previously completed a foundation and new abutments.
"The next step is to put the steel beams — basically connecting either side — across there, and that will hold the deck of the bridge," she said, pointing toward the construction site. "That will be the next step after this, to put the bridge deck on top. And then we'll finish it off with a sidewalk, railings on the side and that's kind of the process of building a bridge."
The remainder of the bridge construction will continue through the winter, with completion scheduled sometime in spring 2023. That's when crews will remove the existing bridge and slide the next bridge into place, much like they did with the 1700 East bridge over I-80 in April.
The projected freeway closure for the next step will be much longer, though. Stromness said it may take either a long weekend or up to five days to complete.
This weekend, motorists will have to use I-15 and I-215 to detour around the I-80 closures. Placing the beams over the freeway is planned at night to lessen the impact of the closure.
The bridge replacement is part of a massive project to improve I-80 and the I-215 east belt near Parleys Canyon and the Wasatch Mountains, which began last year. The plan features bridge replacements at 1300 East, 1700 East and 2000 East, as well as the widening of a bridge at 2300 East, while also repairing the 60-year-old pavement within stretches of both freeways.
"We expect to have traffic on the brand-new pavement with (all) lanes open by the end of 2023," Stromness said.
