Bridge job will close Highway 26 for weeks

A permit from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad led to a green light for restoration of a bridge project on Highway 26 which is expected to alter the fall season for WSU football fans and families. The bridge job, now slated to start Oct. 15, will close the highway for five weeks while the contractor, N.A. Degerstrom of Spokane, pulls out the stops to get the job done by Nov. 21, a day before Thanksgiving.

Degerstrom had been targeting a start time of next Monday, but reported to the Department of Transportation this week that he would have to delay the start another week. The contractor plans to put two crews, one working at each end of the bridge, on the job seven days a week, according to Jeff Adamson, communications manager for the North Central District of the DOT which is based in Wenatchee.

Adamson explained that under a long-standing agreement, the DOT is required to get a permit from BNSF for any work done during the fourth quarter of the year which is the busiest time for the railroad.

The lengthy permit process finally concluded with BNSF issuing the permit Monday.

The BNSF tracks run under the bridge which is located about 3.5 miles west of the intersection of Highway 395 and Highway 26. The Hatton-Cunningham roads intersection with Highway 26 on the west side of the bridge.

Adamson said the state will post a detour which will add 17.5 miles to the route with the bridge closed. The detour will require eastbound motorists to turn south on Highway 17 on the west side of Othello, travel south to Highway 260, turn east to Connell, and then head back north on 395 to the Highway 26 intersection.

Highway 26 extends for 134 miles to Colfax from the I-90 intersection at Vantage.

The Highway 26 detour will be in place for three home WSU football games, Oregon on Oct. 20, California on Nov. 3 and Arizona on Nov. 17.

The Nov. 21 finish date would put the highway back in operation just before the WSU Thanksgiving exodus to the west side and two days before the Apple Cup game scheduled in Pullman this year.

Adamson reported the bridge job had originally been planned for next year’s construction season, but it had to be advanced to before winter set in for this year. He said an eight-foot piece of concrete fell from the bridge deck earlier in the year, and maintenance crews have had to make weekly trips to the bridge to make repairs and install patches.

“It got to the point where we would have had to station a crew there full time all through the winter,” he commented.

Degerstrom’s bid on the project was for $1,086,000, and the overall cost has been figured at $1.2 million with DOT costs included.

Degerstrom has been the contractor this summer on the Highway 195 bridge projects and the passing lane projects.

For work on the five 195 bridges, traffic was alternated on one side of each bridge with control lights while crews worked on the opposite side.

Adamson said that option was discussed for the Highway 26 project, but turned out to be impossible because it would add weeks to the construction time.