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AMERICAN FORK -- Crews have reached another milestone in the project to build Pioneer Crossing in Utah County.
Work started Wednesday on a second bridge at the American Fork Main Street exit.. It will connect Interstate 15 to the Pioneer Crossing highway.
The new road is still on schedule, and is 61 percent complete.
"We're still looking at a fall completion date for the project, and right now our big push is to get the north side of the diverging diamond interchange bridge put into place this summer," says Scott Thompson, spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation.
Expect lane and off-ramp restrictions on southbound I-15 near American Fork Main Street, as trucks deliver girders for the north DDI bridge. Construction of the bridge support columns for the north DDI bridge is underway. Crews are working on the bridge foundations in the I-15 median north of the existing bridge.
The interchange will be the first of its kind in Utah, designed to improve traffic flow.
The first long beams have arrived, which will be used to build an overpass bridge off site. For the next three months, the bridge will be built on a bridge farm; and likely during the first weekend of June, it will be moved into place.
A similar project helped to build the new bridge, which is currently in use, and it only required two overnight freeway closures.
"This certainly shortens the time of impact on the freeway," Thompson says. "We can build everything off site; once it's all done, move it in during a weekend so it shortens the inconvenience for the traveling public.
Work on Pioneer Crossing will be picking up with the spring weather. Crews will start putting down more concrete for the six-mile road, which will extend from the freeway to Redwood Road in Saratoga Springs.
It also includes two bridge projects: One over railroad tracks near Mill Pond in Lehi, and the other over the Jordan River.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
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