(Source graphics: PBOT – Animation: BikePortland)
The City of Portland gave us an early Christmas present yesterday when the transportation announced that the Flanders Crossing Bridge will be installed on December 18th.
Since breaking ground this past summer, the transportation bureau has made solid progress building the bridge footings on the east and west sides of I-405 at NW Flanders. As many of you know, Flanders has been promised to be a major bikeway for decades and the bridge is the lynchpin to the entire project. We’ve shared the design details and now all that’s left to do is wait.
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The bridge structure is currently on the back of a truck on its way to Portland from where it was fabricated in Minnesota. I plan to be down there when it arrives. For now, this little animation of how it’ll be constructed will have to tide you over.
PBOT says the bridge will be ready to ride by spring of next year! Check the official project page for more information.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Awesome PBOT! Thanks!
Fabricated in Minnesota?! They were able to fabricate the Sauvie Island bridge here in Portland which is far more substantial than this.
The decision on where to fabricate it would have been made by the general contractor who won the project through competitive bid. There’s nothing particularly complicated about the steelwork that I can see, so I’m kind of amazed that it makes financial sense to fabricate it in Minnesota.
Whose brother-in-law got the contract?
It’s “Buy America,” not “Buy Oregon.”
good point. Oregon isn’t particularly good at making anything.
What a cool sentence!
“Hi-diddly-ho!”
Hey, neighborino!
Always a delight to see things we talked about in 2005 coming to fruition! It’s hard to dream the long dream – and to have the patience to see it will happen. Glad it is!
That should be spelled linchpin, not lynchpin.
oof!
Will the improvements to the Flanders Greenway be complete by then as well?
Just leave 405 shut down…sell half the land and make half the lane open space.
good luck with that, they put a lot of effort into pushing the 405 bypass through formerly viable neighborhoods, plus digging the trench and all the rest…ODOT at its finest!
Well, if this attracts half as many new cyclists as any of the other so-called bicycle infrastucture projects in the past 10 years, I will be impressed, because it isn’t hard to top half of none. Plus, most so-called ‘protected’ bike lanes are full of leaves right now, wtf?
Bikeportland – “Where it can be guaranteed that good news is met with complaints”
Nothing built anymore in Oregon? Portland? Venture on down to Swan Island and on out Basin Avenue and watch the Western Star trucks roll out of the Daimler plant there. Then swing over to the Vigor Industrial shipyards (via The Captain’s Walk) for a dose of real ship repair and metal fab, and on your way back along the Willamette Greenway Trail glance over to Gunderson across the River for some barge construction. Launches are open to the public or can be viewed from the WGT off N. Channel Avenue.
This tour will take you by Stack Metallurgical that heat-treats parts for jet engines, a Keen boot shop, NW Paper Box when boxes of all kind are printed, Bridgetown Printing, and a heavy duty boiler manufacturing facility…for a start.
Just rode by Lloyd district this morning. The Bridge Pieces have arrived!
Just rode by Lloyd district this morning. The bridge has arrived.