Monday, June 04, 2007
The home stretch!!!
When last we checked in on it the new bridge on the route from the sea to Caracas was having its concrete blocks placed on top of the steel support lattice:
These concrete blocks were beeing hoisted into place by two cranes working side by side gradually moving out over the bridge as they laid down the blocks:
That process was went much faster than expected and was finished over a week ago. Following that concrete was poured into the spaces between the blocks to create a solid road bed. That process has also now been completed and as one can see the structure of the bridge is essentially complete:
The details waiting to be completed are fairly minor. First, note the steel rods sticking up out of the road bed. Those will be used to anchor the road divider and similar rods along the edges will anchor the barrier keeping vehicles from going over the side of the bridge (it's a long ways down!).
The remaining tasks are putting those barriers in place, paving the roadway and painting the markings, and installing lighting. Also, one ramp to the bridge is not yet complete and is being worked on. But all those tasks should be finished within the next two weeks and the bridge opened for traffic in time for the Copa America soccer tournament which begins later this month.
And by the way, the stadiums for that tournament are starting to look really nice. More on that later. Anyways, the next post on this bridge will probably be when the it is innaugurated.
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These concrete blocks were beeing hoisted into place by two cranes working side by side gradually moving out over the bridge as they laid down the blocks:
That process was went much faster than expected and was finished over a week ago. Following that concrete was poured into the spaces between the blocks to create a solid road bed. That process has also now been completed and as one can see the structure of the bridge is essentially complete:
The details waiting to be completed are fairly minor. First, note the steel rods sticking up out of the road bed. Those will be used to anchor the road divider and similar rods along the edges will anchor the barrier keeping vehicles from going over the side of the bridge (it's a long ways down!).
The remaining tasks are putting those barriers in place, paving the roadway and painting the markings, and installing lighting. Also, one ramp to the bridge is not yet complete and is being worked on. But all those tasks should be finished within the next two weeks and the bridge opened for traffic in time for the Copa America soccer tournament which begins later this month.
And by the way, the stadiums for that tournament are starting to look really nice. More on that later. Anyways, the next post on this bridge will probably be when the it is innaugurated.
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