It'll be a couple of weeks before a contractor installs the final piece on top of the Iowa-bound arches for the new, I-74 bridge. Michelle O'Neill reports everyone's excited about it.
Danielle Alvarez, Project Manager from the Iowa DOT, calls the final piece the keystone.
And workers will assemble its two ribs and two struts before installation.
She says crews will "pull back on the stays that support the arches to spread them apart to receive the keystone. It's in a more confined area, so it's best to fly it up in one single piece."
The keystone will be 37.5 feet long and will close the top of the arches.
On the Illinois-bound, or eastbound, side, Alvarez says a crew has completed milling and painting the four large piers for the second set of arches. And she says work is going well on the Bettendorf and Moline parts of the $1.2 billion I-74 project.
The project team's goal is to complete the Iowa-bound (westbound) bridge and open it to traffic in the second half of the year.
