The second and final arch of the new Broadway Bridge was floated into place Friday, giving onlookers and passers-by a pretty good idea of what the span will look like when it opens to traffic next spring.
Roughly 60 people gathered Friday morning at North Shore Riverwalk Park in North Little Rock to watch the arch-placing operation.
Several onlookers snapped photographs as barges holding the arch were slowly and smoothly pushed into place, an operation that began at 10:20 a.m. and concluded shortly before noon. A smaller group of people watched the progress from the Main Street Bridge.
Orlando Watkins, 55, a former construction worker, said he has gone to the north side of the Arkansas River once or twice a week over the past eight months to keep tabs on construction of the new bridge. On Friday morning, he leaned against the railing at the park to observe the second-arch placement.
[BROADWAY BRIDGE: Videos + traffic map, cameras, previous coverage, photos here]
"I like it," he said of the overall look of the bridge. "It looks nice, and I think the crew did a real nice job with it."
Watkins of North Little Rock said that over the years he had crossed the old Broadway Bridge countless times before it closed for demolition this fall.
He said that in the 1960s, when he was a boy, the bridge was a hangout for him and his friends. "We would get up there, we would go halfway up the arch over the river, and just be playing on there," he said.
Watkins said the new bridge, with its double arches now installed, is a nice change for Little Rock's skyline.
"We need something like that," he said.
Bill Simpson, 65, watched much of the bridge operation Friday through a camera lens. He said he's been going to the Arkansas River about once a week to photograph construction of the bridge.
"It's beautiful," he said. "The precision, the engineering part of this, is absolutely amazing."
Simpson, a North Little Rock resident, said he routinely crossed the old Broadway Bridge to visit a movie theater in west Little Rock. He said the off-ramp from the bridge to LaHarpe Boulevard in Little Rock made it easy to avoid traffic downtown. A similar ramp has been built for the new bridge.
"I can't wait to get the off-ramp going again so I can just zip out that way," he said. "Much quicker."
Gordon Williams, 62, a painter and part-time musician, took a break from work Friday to watch the arch being pushed into place. Like several others at the park, Williams has closely followed construction of the bridge. As towboats churned the arch into position in the water Friday, he marveled at the mechanics of the operation.
"Think of the weight that has to be on the bottom to keep that from going like this," he said, turning his hand sideways. "That's a lot of stuff."
Moving the second arch -- which, like the first one, weighs 1,600 tons -- to its new home as the south half of the bridge connecting downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock went smoothly, according to Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
The work to lower the arch and secure it on the new bridge's piers was completed at 4:15 p.m. and went without incident, he said. Locks at the Murray Lock and Dam, upstream from the bridge, and at Terry Lock and Dam, downstream from the bridge, were closed to "calm the river for the operation."
"Everything went quite well," Straessle said. "You couldn't have asked for better weather. There was no major delays ... and no injuries. It was a picture-perfect day for bridge construction."
Still, much work remains before the bridge opens to traffic, scheduled for March 29.
Under the terms of the $98.4 million contract for the job, Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., has six months to close the old bridge, remove it, build the new bridge and open it to traffic.
The company will be docked $80,000 for every day it misses the deadline or paid $80,000 for every day the project comes in before the deadline. The latter has a 50-day limit on the payments.
Much of the remaining bridge work won't be the kind that prompts people to stop and stare.
Over the past several weeks, demolishing the old bridge with explosives and floating the new bridge's two towering arches into place attracted crowds on both riverbanks, and prompted motorists to stop and watch.
Now, the work "will go back to standard bridge construction," Straessle said.
Less-visible work is already underway on the first arch. Temporary struts used to help support it have been replaced with additional cables that are being tightened, he said.
Pans have been installed on the bridge deck to use to pour the concrete road surface.
Workers have installed short poles to support LED lights that will light up the roadway at night, according to Straessle.
This weekend, a section of Riverfront Drive and the Arkansas River Trail in North Little Rock will be closed in the vicinity of the bridge to allow installation of steel girders above Riverfront Drive and the trail.
The girders will support the north approach to the bridge linking it to west Broadway.
A steel girder leading from the south end of the bridge to Riverfront Drive already has been installed.
Similar work now will begin on the second arch.
Whatever work is going on, people such as Charlie and Debbie Wirges of Sherwood likely will continue to stop and take it in. They have been to the site several times, starting with the ceremony to close the old bridge on Sept. 28.
They were on the Main Street Bridge taking photographs Friday. Debbie Wirges estimates that between them they have taken about 1,000 photographs of the project.
"We've had a good time watching it," she said. "We say, 'Let's go down to the bridge and see any changes.' It's like an adventure."
Metro on 12/03/2016