A new 135-foot pedestrian bridge spanning the Cedar River at Riverview Park will be lifted into place on Friday.
The work will require the diversion of two eastbound lanes of Maple Valley Highway/SR 169 in Renton into one lane to accommodate the delivery and installation of the bridge.
The diversion is between 3 a.m. and 1 p.m. one-half mile east of the Renton Community Center to Southeast Fifth Street. No left turns will be allowed to Southeast Fifth Street during the closure.
The two westbound lanes of the Maple Valley Highway will remain open.
The 15-ton aluminum bridge is replacing a 1960s-era one whose wooden pilings were repeatedly battered by debris from flood waters and had to be torn down for safety reasons in summer 2014.
The city expects to have the new bridge open to the public by the New Year, with a grand-opening celebration next spring.
The bridge was to be delivered whole and parked on a trailer by 3 a.m. this morning. The actual installation will begin at 7 a.m. under city code and should take about an hour.
Following a final visual inspection of the bridge, a crane in the Riverview Park parking lot will lift the entire bridge up and over the Cedar River, placing it on the constructed bridge abutments, according to Todd Black, a City of Renton capital project coordinator.
Crews will install the aluminum mesh decking and utility pipes below the decking, which will take several days.
The cost to demolish the old wooden bridge and design and build a new aluminum structure is approximately $1.4 million. The city received nearly $1.1 million for the project from the state in 2014.
The 1960s-era former bridge was constructed on creosote-soaked wood piles set in the Cedar River. Every winter, debris, including large logs, would be caught on the piers, according to Black.
A structural engineer’s report in 2012 stated that the substructure was in poor condition. The city received letters of support from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe for replacement with a single-span bridge.
Reach Dean A. Radford at 425-255-3484, ext. 5150.
