The Johnson Street Bridge

photos from Dec. 6, 2017
 From the Times Colonist - Tuesday, January 30
Johnson Street Bridge Back in business
Deck placement and other work on new span spills into Monday due to Saturday winds
Adrew Duffy
Ten minutes later than expected, the Johnson Street Bridge was down and operational on Monday after two wet days of construction wrapped on its replacement.
Bridge project director Jonathan Huggett said the massive crane barge known as the Dynamic Beast, which lifted the last two components of the new bridge into place over the past two days, was secured about 4:30 p.m. and the barge ropes were disconnected just before 5 p.m.
By 5:10 p.m. the old Blue Bridge was in the down position and traffic was flowing again between downtown and Vic West
The crane barge will head back to Vancouver, returning when the old bridge is demolished.
Foot, bicycle and motor traffic was detoured to Bay Street on Sunday and most of Monday, as crews installed the last of the major components for the new Johnson Street Bridge.
Work on the project was cancelled Saturday due to wind, forcing the job to continue into Monday.
On Sunday, through heavy rains most of the early afternoon, the Dynamic Beat slowly lifted and  aligned the 46-metre long,  470-tonne bridge deck span that will make up the bulk of the new bridge.
Small crowds of onlookers dotted the waterfront for most of the process, many of them sitting in warm, dry cars in a parking lot between the Janion and Mermaid Warf buildings.
Workers managed to do their final alignment about 5:15 p.m. on Sunday.  A night crew worked under floodlights to bolt the span in place through Sunday night.  There are three complex bolted connections to be made on each side of the bridge.
On Monday, crews worked on securing the bridge, while raising and adding an insert that had to be welded between the righs and the bridge span.  The bridge is expected to be completed ahead of a test lift on Feb. 4.
While the new bridge will look complete, it is not expected to be open to the public until the
 end of March to allow for testing of its mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems.  After the new bridge is operational, demolition of the old bridge will begin.


I did not get down to take photos on the 29th of January to see the new bridge put in place.

Otherwise, I have finished cleaning up and reloading the albums that had been finished on my web page, after Godaddy cleaned up the malware, and registered my SSL certificate.  I have made new pages on the Gardening page and new pages for the on going Travel stuff.  2017 was a very busy year  for work on my web page. 

There were renovations to old flower beds in the back and in the front gardens.  The cedar hedges have been trimmed, topped and pruned.  Despite the heat wave after this pruning, the hedges are looking fine and healthy.  I had Davey Tree do this work.  They also took out the old plum tree in January, as well as the tall pin oak in the back woodland area.  It was too close to the garage. 

Hopefully, I will have more time for my blog this year.