Lifting load restriction restores important shipping route
Brian Coddington, Communications Director, 509.625.6740
Friday, January 17, 2014 at 11:55 a.m.
Improvements to the Greene Street Bridge have reopened the important designated regional trucking route to all legal loads.
Fuel carriers and other freight haulers began rolling across the bridge this morning. Previous load restrictions diverted larger trucks down Mission Avenue through the Logan Neighborhood to Division Street and through downtown.
“Improving the Greene Street Bridge was a pressing need, and it was important that we took the time to do this project right,” Spokane Mayor David Condon said. “The bridge is officially reopened to all legal loads.”
Structural epoxy injections as part of applying carbon fiber reinforcing material to the Greene Street Bridge were completed as part of a little more than three months of improvements done to remove the load restrictions. The $1.7 million total project cost included unexpected expenses for the injections. Original estimates for the cost of that work came back at approximately $988,000, but close work with contractor partner, Leewens, reduced that cost to $520,000.
A full bridge replacement would have cost almost $12 million and taken years. The North Spokane Corridor project will include a new bridge across the Spokane River, but that is still sometime in the future.
Money from the Spokane Regional Transportation Council and the Arterial Street Fund paid for the Greene Street Bridge improvements. Council members Amber Waldref and Mike Fagan both played important roles as conduits to the neighborhoods impacted by the alternate route used while load restrictions were in place on the bridge.
