Broad Avenue bridge sides almost connected

ALBANY — Travelers crossing the Flint River in downtown Albany this week might notice that the Broad Avenue bridge is inching closer to completion and construction crews are hoping to connect the east and west ends of the bridge by the end of this week, if weather permits.

According to Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Nita Birmingham, barring weather delays workers are hoping to complete what is called a “closure pour” which will officially connect the two sides at some point this week. Once that closure pour is completed crews will turn their attention to a few other finishing tasks that will hopefully be done well in advance of the current project completion date of late August.

Birmingham said one of the major things that needs to be completed is grading of the bridge surface, to make it uniform.

“If you walked across the bridge right now it would feel like a rough sidewalk,” Birmingham said. “They still need to grind down the surface to make it more consistent.”

Crews also have to cut grooves for rain water drainage, and stripe the road surface before the bridge can open, Birmingham said. Additionally crews need to add sidewalks and railings, as well as construct and pave tie-ins at either end of the bridge, allowing traffic to transition smoothly onto the bridge.

Birmingham also said that there are some “little things” still to be done like adding grass to the embankments under the bridge to control erosion and things to make the bridge more attractive and adding lights, benches and plaques to make it look more like the original Memorial Bridge.

“What they are trying to do is make it look as much like the old bridge as possible, while having be built to today’s standards, ” said Birmingham.

For years the bridge was one of Albany’s main arteries across the Flint River, but damage sustained over time, most notably following the floods of 1994 and 1998, forced the closure of the bridge in February of 2009.

After conducting underwater inspections of the bridge’s foundation, it was determined that the structural integrity of the bridge had deteriorated to the point where it had to be closed to traffic.

That closure forced the traffic across the Flint to be routed to the Oglethorpe Avenue bridge one block south of Broad Avenue.

The Oglethorpe bridge has an average daily traffic count of 29,990 vehicles. Once the new Broad Avenue bridge is completed, traffic counts on Broad are expected to return to their former levels of nearly 12,000 vehicles per day, thus alleviating some of the traffic across Oglethorpe.

Birmingham said the most recent estimates indicate that by 2033 traffic counts on Broad Avenue could rise to an average of nearly 16,000 vehicles per day, with five percent of that coming in the form of truck traffic.

While Birmingham said construction of the bridge is ahead of schedule, officials are still saying the bridge won’t be completed until late summer. Last week, however, Albany City Engineer Bruce Maples was quoted as saying the bridge is expected to open by the end of June.