By Mary Alice Murphy

With the piers firmly in place, the concrete poured, the riprap abutments almost complete, the next major phase of the New Mexico 90/Hudson Street Bridge project will kick into high gear on Sept. 22.

Brian Torres, NM Department of Transportation project manager, at the monthly information meeting, held Wednesday evening at its new venue €”the Grant County Administration Center €”said meetings would continue on the third Wednesdays of the month at the new venue.

"We are on schedule, but we will use every bit of it," Torres said. "Traffic will be flowing before the end of December."

He said next Tuesday through Saturday, Sept. 22-26 and Monday through Friday, Sept. 28-Oct. 2, 96-foot-long and 108-foot long girders will be arriving in Silver City on U.S. 180 East and Hudson Street.

The girders on huge trucks will be coming in about five at a time, with the first ones leaving Albuquerque by 9 a.m. Tuesday and arriving mid-to-late afternoon. "They will roll into the job site and begin to be put in place."

Because the trucks that will be carrying them are oversized, they will go in a convoy with a pilot car in front and behind.

Brian Pollock, Interstate Highway Construction project manager, noted that South Bullard Street would be closed down when trucks are coming in. Parking along the street will be limited to unavailable.

The company is coordinating with the Silver City Police Department on the likelihood of temporary closure of the Broadway and NM 90 and Broadway and Bullard Street intersections while trucks navigate the two turns onto South Bullard, which will be one of the staging sites.

"We will likely begin setting the beams early next Wednesday morning," Pollock said.

Five trucks a day, with 50 total coming in, will arrive in Silver City over the 10 days.

"We will have double crews seven days a week," Pollock said. "They will work 7 a.m. to sundown."

He said the only issue that has been unforeseen in their planning is Mother Nature, which could change schedules.

"We will pour one-half the bridge at a time," Pollock said.

Because the department has three other bridge jobs in New Mexico going on at the same time, it has been hard to schedule the arrival of the girders.

Each girder weighs about 88,000 pounds. A crane at each end of each girder will guide them into place.

"Immediately around both ends, on the Silver City and the Lordsburg sides, viewing will be unavailable during the placements of the girders on the ends," Pollock noted. "The viewing area will be limited while we are staging the trucks."

It will take the full two weeks to set the girders. "There are several operations that follow each other," Pollock said. "Then we will start building the deck."

He said a week after the first girders are in place, the contractor, IHC, will set safety cables in place for the start of setting the deck.

"There is always a lot of difficulty in starting to get the girders in place, but it usually smoothes out after the first couple of days," Pollock said. "The deck itself will be a lot less exciting."

"We have three phases of riprap, which is broken rock, under the bridge," Pollock explained to a question. "The riprap is complete on both ends of the bridge. It is for erosion control. A storm system will gather water at both abutments."

Pollock said he apologized for the inconvenience that will be caused by the arrival of the girders, "but we had no other options to getting the girders to where we need them."

"In my 12 years in the company, this is the toughest one I've seen," Pollock said. "Our supervisor, who has 37 years on the job, said it's the toughest he's seen."

The next meeting is set for 6 p.m. Oct. 21, at the Grant County Administration Center.