Posted on 09/15/2008 9:22:44 AM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Governor Pawlenty and other officials announced Monday when the new Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis will open.
The bridge will open to traffic on Thursday at 5 a.m., just over a year after the old one tragically collapsed into the Mississippi River and cut off a key Minneapolis artery.
Pawlenty was joined on Monday at a news conference on the new bridge by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and members of Minnesota's congressional delegation.
Officials also announced plans for a memorial to honor the victims of the August 1st, 2007, collapse of the old I-35W bridge that killed 13 people and injured 145 others.
Crews began working on the new bridge last November 1st.
The new concrete span includes high-tech sensors and back-up features the steel truss bridge it replaces lacked. The $234 million bridge was fast-tracked to restore a traffic route that accounted for 140,000 trips a day.
The builders are in line for a bonus of up to $27 million for completing the project more than three months early.
Details on the investigation into what caused the collapse of the 40-year-old bridge are expected in November.
I wish road work went that fast here.
If a road being under construction for 40 years seems perfectly normal, you might be from Wichita, KS.
One fixed. How many to go ?
The original 35w bridge was being “redecked”
at the time of collapse- anyone who crossed that
bridge at the time could see the torn out re-bar
and other concrete pieces missing- on the day of
collapse- they dumped 300,000 LBS. of gravel and
sand on 1 end of the bridge. A tragedy to be sure
but guess what- up here the Mantra is “bush did it”
along with republicans - lets raise taxes! and they did.
The average Minnesotan is sooo stupid..
I predict the 1st to cross will be Jim Oberstar in his bike shorts riding his bicycle.
He’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat Mayor Rybak and his wind-up car.....
FYI ping....
McPaper had something in it this morning about this...and it included some liberal whine about the bridge lacking architectural flair, whatever the hell that is...
Yeah, evidently it wasn’t a tribute to the struggles of the GLBT “community”.
;-)
Ping to you, jeffers —
Thank you for your great explanation of the original collapse; seems to have gotten lost in FR’s files.
Architectural flare = an extra $50million and five years. ...along with light rail and a bike lane.
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