Camden Bridge
The Lowry Avenue Bridge that crossed the Mississippi between North and North East Minneapolis was demolished this summer. The replacement, an $80 – $85 million Hennepin County project is set to begin early in 2010.
It was just announced that the Camden Bridge, will close for a nine-month renovation to complete deferred maintenance beginning at about the same time. Each project will receive $10 million dollars of Federal Stimulus funds that are subject to a tight timeline for work to be accomplished.
Closing the Camden Bridge to all traffic will allow the work to be completed in nine months, as opposed to two years, if the work was done keeping alternate lanes open throughout the project. The complete closure represents a savings of $1.5 million.
4 Comments
Couldn’t they wait until the lowry bridge is re-opened?? Broadway and 694 will be the only way across the river. Anyone tried to cross Broadway bridge around 5pm? SUCKS
Closing the Camden Bridge is not a good thing many people walk or bike across the bridge to get to work or school you should think twice about you are doing i may lose my job because of this and many other there was a head on accident in front of fire department training center two weeks ago how are emergency vehicles going to get here in timely manner .
The concrete deck on the Camden bridge is shot (and so are the steel railings). They’ve been spending two months patching it up each spring for the past several years, and it just keeps deteriorating even more rapidly. As the city has been throwing good money after bad on this bridge for so long, this rehab/rebuild is years overdue.
Unfortunately, the timing is awful. While they were busy playing political games and postponing this project, old man river was busy washing the 100 year old piers out from under the Lowry bridge. It’s going to suck having both the Lowry and the Camden bridges out.
The Plymouth bridge is a good alternate to the Broadway bridge if you’re driving. Traffic is much lighter than Broadway; use it if you can. If you’re walking, God help you. I just hope nobody with the bright idea to walk across one of the railroad bridges gets killed.
What about leaving one sidewalk open to bikes and pedestrians? Biking up to 694 or down to Plymouth adds many extra miles to a biking commute and would be impossible for a walker.