Completed Improvements

Deck Construction Nearing Completion on Upstream Side of the Northbound Bridge

October  19, 2009 -- Most of the new concrete deck is in place on the downstream half of the northbound I-476/Blue Route Bridge over the Schuylkill River in Montgomery County.

Iron workers are setting reinforcing steel for the remaining deck sections at the north end of the bridge. Paving crews are working behind the iron workers pouring the bridge's new riding surface.

With most of the old concrete deck removed and large sections of the steel super-structure cleaned, crews are welding metal deck pans to the beams and tying a gridwork of reinforcing bars atop the pans. A new concrete pavement is being poured in sections, or slabs, atop the reinforcing steel. The rebars add strength and flexibility to the new concrete deck, which also is fiber-reinforced to reduce cracking. 

Crews also are building formwork for new parapets along the length of the span. The sound wall panels that were removed from the northern end of the span will be replaced - atop higher concrete parapets -- at the completion of work on the busy bridge.

Construction also is underway to remove and rebuild the approach pavement -- the concrete slab that connects the bridge to the at-grade roadway.

During work on the bridge, two lanes of northbound traffic have been shifted to the rebuilt side of the bridge. Construction has been underway (double shifts, seven days a week, weather permitting) since August -- when the upstream half of the bridge was completed -- to rebuild the downstream side of the bridge. The structure is scheduled to be completed and the entire bridge reopened to traffic in November.

Work to rebuild the southbound I-476/Blue Route Bridge will get underway next spring. The second span will be reconstructed using a staging process similar to the one being used on the northbound bridge. That staging includes the use of an express lane traffic pattern that allows PennDOT to maintain three lanes of capacity in each direction during peak travel periods on the heavily used interstate.

Construction on the southbound bridge will be coordinated with a separate project to reconstruct the I-476/Blue Route Roadway beginning in early 2010. Go here for a status report on the roadway project. 

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