Whoop Up bridge work nearly finished
By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 14, 2024.
Herald photo by Ian Martens
Crews continue road work on the bridge deck on Tuesday evening as traffic travels along Whoop-Up Drive.LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com
Whoop Up Drive construction is expected to be over soon thanks to work being done after hours. Something that started last night and will continue for the next few days weather permitted says the city.
Naftali Kiboya, transportation project engineer with the City of Lethbridge and project manager for the Whoop Up project, told the Herald during a phone interview Tuesday afternoon that the project was nearly complete.
“We are actually ahead of schedule. The project began on July 2 and it was expected to be completed by the second week of September, but we are in the final stages already,” said Kiboya.
He said even though there has been times where workers have not been on site the process has not being delayed. Kiboya explained concrete needs time to cure and harden before the process can continue.
“The only thing that is remaining now is the pavement of the approach joint, the transition from the bridge onto the roadway,” said Kiboya.
He said they have been taking surveys of the area and realized there were some alignments that needed to be done.
“We created the profiles to make it smooth from the bridge onto the roadway, and they will be working on it tonight and tomorrow night and we hope to have the road open by the weekend,” said Kiboya.
He explained what has been done so far and said the bridge needed some deck repair, which involved chipping out some of the areas of the deck to replace the concrete.
“After replacing the concrete it needed some time to cure. it is not something that you pour the concrete and you can drive on it the next day. That is why there is times where people didn’t see workers on site,” said Kiboya.
He said other items that were included in the project for this construction season were crack repairs on the roadway as well as on the concrete barriers which has been done during the night for the last few weeks.
“Next year we will have to close the area again to replace the expansion joints. The project was a two-year project and that is what will take place next year,” said Kiboya.
When talking about the right lane being the only area where the transition from the bridge to the road needs to be finished, he explained the pavement on the other two lanes was done so they could be used but was only temporary.
“That was temporary so it can be used, but we had to prepare the profile to make the transition smooth from the bridge to the roadway and now that it has been prepared the joint will be paved over in all three lanes,” said Kiboya.
He explained the asphalt used to pave the joint over the left and centre lane was their cold mix, something temporary for the road to be used but now it will be replaced with their hot mix.
“If everything goes well, they will be working on it from tonight (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. and same on Wednesday night into Thursday morning and hopefully we can re-open by the weekend,” said Kiboya.
17-16
Explains why I haven’t seen any workers on the bridge last few weeks.