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The first section of bridge decking being lifted into place on August 8. |
The Washington State Department of Transportation is setting a date of early July 2007 as the time when the second Tacoma Narrows Bridge will open to commuters.
Nearly three months past its original April 2007 date, Washington State Department of Transportation Media Relations Manager Claudia Cornish said the project is currently 82 percent complete.
The current phase of the project is in its fifth and final phase, which is lifting the 46 pre-fabricated bridge decks into place. Workers are currently lifting the fifth deck. Work with the bridge decks is expected to last through December.
Along with the bridge deck work, testing is being completed on all nine toll booths, located in eastbound lanes of state Route 16; both electronically and manually and the back-office accounting, Cornish said.
In total, there are six toll booths that will be managed by toll collectors and three express lanes, which are “electronic” toll collectors that are mounted over the highway lanes to read the “Good to Go” sticker on vehicle windshields and acts like a debit account each time one uses the suspension bridge.
Cornish said the reason for the three-month delay was due to corroded cable wire.
“We had to reject one-third of the wire we ordered from the South Korean company,” Cornish said.
Cornish said the reason for such a long delay in ordering new cable wire is that it is very specialized wire that only a few companies worldwide fabricate.
Three new companies in South Korea, China and the United Kingdom fabricated the new cable wire.
After the completion of the second suspension bridge, the first bridge that was built in 1950 will undergo an 11-month renovation, Cornish said. The entire project will be completed by 2008.
Along with bridge work, a governor appointed a nine-member citizens committee is in the final stages of making recommendations to the state transportation commission on a final toll schedule. Cornish said the toll schedule will be revealed to the general public in early 2007.
According to Cornish, the WSDOT toll projections to pay back the bonds for the construction of the bridge begins at $3 with an increase of one dollar each year for three to four years peaking at $6.
“This is just a projection by the WSDOT, Cornish said. “It is fully up to the (state) transportation commission for a final price and incentives.”. | 
