Date:
Friday, February 22, 2008
Contact:
Contacts: Marlin Lenssen, WSDOT Project Engineer, 425-225-8796 (Everett)
Meghan Soptich, WSDOT communications, 206-440-4704 (Seattle)
ARLINGTON – Last week, crews working to improve State Route 9 between Arlington and Bryant planned to set girders for a new bridge over Harvey Creek and Harvey Creek Road on Monday, Feb. 25. Today, WSDOT engineers postponed the work until early March to repair a crane that has broken down at the work site.
“We can’t proceed with the girder settings until we have two functional cranes,” said Project Engineer Marlin Lenssen. “We hoped to get a replacement crane by this weekend, but there’s not one available. So a new motor block will be shipped from Germany to repair the existing crane,” he said.
When repairs to the crane are complete, crews will set all six girders in three days. Despite the short-term setback, Lenssen confirms that the project is still on schedule to open the new turn lanes and straightened roadway to traffic by this fall.
Crews constructed the foundation for the bridge last fall, and will start building the bridge deck once the girders are in place. The bridge is within a new one-mile stretch of highway crews are building to eliminate a sharp curve on the existing highway, which currently limits sight distance for drivers, increasing the risk of collisions.
In addition to straightening the dangerous curve, crews are also adding new turn lanes at the intersections of 252nd St NE and 268th St NE, upgrading lighting, replacing culverts to improve fish passage, and making other changes to enhance safety on the highway. They’ve been busy since starting construction last summer, and have already replaced one culvert, installed new drainage systems and filled a dip in the highway near Bryant.
This $20 million project is funded in part by the 2003 Nickel Gas Tax. For more information, visit www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR9/SchlomanTo268thNE/.
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