Following the implosion of the Commercial Street Bridge earlier this week, PennDOT said that it will begin sliding in the brand new bridge on Sunday morning.
Beginning at 10 a.m. on Sunday, the lateral slide of the bridge between the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and the Edgewood-Swissvale exit will be put into place. The pre-built, fully constructed bridge will move 102 feet into place.
PennDOT said that each of the 42 skids that will move the bridge into place operates independently, and hydraulic jacks will be used to lift the bridge from the temporary supports and then set it down on the permanent bearings.
A livestream of the slide can be viewed here.
Explosive demolition takes down Commercial Street Bridge
On Wednesday morning, just before 8 a.m., an explosive demolition brought down the old bridge. The implosion sent a large plume of dust into the air.
PennDOT District 11 Executive Jason Zang said the demolition went “extremely well.”
“It went according to plan,” Zang said. “No damage to the new bridge.”
The Commercial Street Bridge has been demolished along the Parkway East as PennDOT prepares to slide in a new bridge, that has already been built.
KDKA Drone Team / KDKA Photojournalist Brian Smithmyer
At the time of the demolition, the new bridge had been wrapped in a protective layer to prevent any damage.
Moving the new bridge into place will take time
As the slide begins on Sunday morning, it won’t be a quick process.
The new bridge contains about 22 million pounds of steel, concrete, and metal. While it only has to be moved a little over 100 feet, the maximum speed of the skids is about 6 meters, roughly 20 feet, per hour.
“At the end of the day, we want to make sure that we’ve completed the job safely and efficiently and have not caused undue stress to the structure,” said Mammoet Public Relations Director David Shaw. “We do this kind of thing on a weekly basis. The only thing that changes is the shape of the load.”
PennDOT said on Sunday morning that the public will be alerted when the new bridge is fully in place.
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