Reopening of busy bridge delayed
Contractor aims for mid-December opening of Guadalupe bridge after October date missed; more work in $1.78M project slated for spring
Abridge that normally carries heavy southbound traffic from St. Francis Drive onto Guadalupe Street — which has been closed for rehabilitation work since late September — isn’t scheduled to reopen until mid-December, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Rosanne Rodriguez said.
Officials said the bridge originally was scheduled to open sometime in October.
Rodriguez was unable to provide a reason for the delay, though she said weather could have been a factor.
The bridge carries U.S. 84/285 southbound traffic onto Guadalupe Street and into downtown Santa Fe.
Hasse Contracting Co. of Albuquerque continues removing and replacing concrete curbs, milling and repaving the asphalt, removing and replacing guardrails, striping the roadway and doing miscellaneous concrete work, Rodriguez said.
State and federal funds are being used to improve the bridge, which is at least several decades old, Rodriguez said. In all, the cost of the project is $1.78 million. About 36,000 vehicles use the bridge each day.
In addition to rehabilitating the bridge, crews are raising its height by 3 inches to conform with federal requirements, Rodriguez said. Additional lighting also was added. Work will be suspended for the winter, and then in early spring 2019, as temperatures allow, crews will replace the final roadway surface and do final striping and painting, Rodriguez said.
The bridge construction long had been planned, but officials became concerned about a year ago, when heavy rains in September 2017 caused a patch on the bridge deck to deteriorate. A hole was created in the concrete decking, exposing steel rebar.
That prompted Hasse to commence emergency repairs.