Parsons gains another benchmark

SANDPOINT — Construction of the U.S. Highway 95 bypass reached another milestone last week as concrete was poured for the fourth pier stem that will support the south end of the project.

The previous week, traffic on the north end of the Long Bridge was flopped onto the new alignment, giving motorists their first taste of the Sand Creek Byway.

“The traffic swap went good,” Shane Webley of lead contractor Parsons RCI said on Thursday. “It’s the first time that we have had traffic on the new alignment of the project since the job started.”

North and southbound traffic will use the alignment for the next two years, although it will be the southbound access to the Long Bridge when the project is completed.

On Thursday, crews poured concrete for the fourth pier stem, clearing the way for it to be capped.

“We’ll have that cap poured within the next three weeks,” Webley said. “If you don’t include the abutments, that’s a completion of the piers for the main-span bridge, which is another milestone.”

Idaho Transportation Department officials hoped to begin laying girders over the piers this fall, but that work is now tracking for sometime this spring, according to Parsons.

At the north end of the project in Ponderay, coffer dams have been installed for the piers that will ultimately support an overpass for motorists on the bypass.

Earth-disturbing activities are slated to cease on Oct. 15 in accordance with a consent decree governing highway construction in the Panhandle during winter. However, the Idaho Transportation Department have obtained waivers which will enable work on mechanically-stabilized earthen walls to continue during the winter shutdown.