New biker-access footbridge spans highway in Pablo
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PABLO — The $3.2 million biker-access footbridge across Highway 93 connecting the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Complex and Salish Kootenai College is several steps closer to completion.
Traffic was detoured through Pablo on Dec. 21 and 22 to allow crews to install the three chunks of bridge over Hwy. 93. The bridge sections had been trucked down from Libby where they were fabricated by Stinger Welding. Transportation was handled by Ernie Abel from Abel Moving and Rigging.
According to Mike Brown, Safety of Dams Coordinator/Roads Program Manager for CSKT, each piece of bridge, approximately 85 feet long, took about a day and a half to travel from Libby to Pablo. Slick roads and snowstorms delayed the moves, also.
First to be slotted into place was the western chunk of the bridge, supported by wooden scaffolding set on boxes full of sand. Then the middle piece was swung into place by Harmon Crane and bolted on, followed by the last section also resting on wooden scaffolding and boxes of sand. When the final bolts were tightened, doors on the boxes were opened and the sand was scattered, flattening the boxes and allowing cranes to remove the wooden bracing structures.
Quarried on the Flathead Reservation, the rock for the support columns on either side of Hwy. 93 was matched as closely as possible to stone on the Tribal Complex buildings, Brown explained.
Bitterly cold temperatures made it tough for construction workers, especially Stinger employees from Coolidge, Ariz., who weren’t used to cold weather.
Crews will finish up during the last week of 2010 and then lay off until spring when landscaping can be completed and metal Bitterroot and Camas flowers and triangles can be attached to the sides of the bridge. Brown said the access ramps leading to the bridge might not be added until warmer weather.
The CSKT revealed the million dollar project in August of 2009. It was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
