Commuters who are looking forward to travelling on new bridges over Anthony Henday Drive could get their wish in early May.
The 170th Street bridge could open by then if the weather co-operates, said Mark Basher, deputy project manager for Flatiron-Graham-Parsons, the company that’s building the northwest leg of the ring road.
Work remaining on the bridge includes the addition of rails and lighting, he said.
The bridge that carries St. Albert Trail over the freeway could be ready for traffic by early June and the Campbell Road bridge could be ready sometime in July, Basher said.
These timelines are heavily dependent on the weather.
“What we’d like to see is a quick thaw,” Basher said. “We’ve got a lot of snow pack so it depends how fast that snow pack melts away and the frost actually comes out.
“If that takes a long time, we’re going to have a slower start to the season.”
The $1.42-billion leg of the Henday has 29 bridges, which are all at various stages of completion. There are about 100 workers now spread between Yellowhead Trail and Manning Drive, Basher said.
“We’ll be ramping up our workforce probably in about a month’s time,” he said.
Last fall Basher was hopeful the bridges at 170th Street and St. Albert Trail could open before the onset of winter, but the weather hindered construction. Some work has continued through the winter, he said. The freeway itself is slated to open in late fall.
The normal time to ramp up road construction is early May but contractors around the province aren’t sure that will happen this year as they look at a spring that hasn’t been eager to release its grip on the ground.
“There’s been a little bit of crankiness around the province but we’re still hopeful that the next couple weeks will smarten up,” said Heidi Harris-Jensen, director of external affairs for the Alberta Roadbuilders & Heavy Construction Association.
Last summer wasn’t a good one for construction, she said.
“There was certainly a handful of jobs that didn’t get done by the end of the season because we had so many rain delays so [contractors] are certainly chomping at the bit and wanting to get started.”
