Crews are making progress on the 6th Street Bridge

SIOUX FALLS, SD (Dakota News Now) – Crews have been working on the 6th Street Bridge for about six weeks. At that time, the old money was gone, except for the pillars.

The old 6th Street Bridge was finished and now it’s out of sight of downtown. City Engineer Wes Philip said that with the Great Sioux River low, construction crews were able to break ground quickly to lay the new Unity Bridge.

“Demolition of the bridge deck is almost finished. Right now we’re working on the piers and finishing up some channel work along the way,” Phillips said.

This low water level is important as crews continue to build that road. Philips said, however, that they are planning what to do if the water level rises.

“So we know what’s going to happen if there’s a big flood. It’s definitely not something we want to deal with. The first thing they did was they put a platform in the river to work on. They built it. It’s called a levee. There are pipes underneath that keep the river flowing,” Philips said. “But, we’ve got a really, really big storm or a lot of flooding. We’re going to have to put the work on hold because everything is going to flood a little bit.”

Philips also said you never know what’s going to happen downtown, but so far there hasn’t been any disruption.

“There have been no big surprises so far. We found a large iron beam in the river that may have been from the bridge that was built before this bridge,” Phillips said.

Work on the bridge will continue until 2024. But Philips said the headache of construction noise and twists and turns will be worth it. In about a month, the crews will move to the next stage of construction. This is to build cofferdams to protect the sections of piers in the river that will be reused. After that, falsework will be put in place for crews to build the new bridge.

“Certainly a sign of progress. In our project, we have money. We have a beautiful scene that we will install. The first elements of the rail whistle reduction zone, which will be of great benefit to workers and residents of our city centre.”

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