The Big Lift Project on the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is no longer just plans on paper.
Crews started lowering a six-metre section of the deck onto a barge in the harbour around noon on Saturday.
The bridge was closed just after rush hour Friday night. A large crowd gathered Saturday morning to watch it all take place.
"It's been six long years to get here,” said Steven Snider of Halifax Bridges. “I'm thinking the folks are very diligent. We're a little behind schedule from where we thought we would be."
Many unforeseen technical issues had to be resolved in order to get to Saturday’s lift. The removal of the first segment proved especially difficult as it had to be moved sideways before being lowered.
“We had always planned that we were going to have to shift the deck segment to a different position in order to be able to lower it the rest of the way,” said John Eppell, Big Lift project leader.
The new bridge segment is scheduled to be up the side of the pier by early Saturday evening.
“The new segment, while I saw it in the shop, looked very, very big. It looks a little smaller sitting out there on the barge today," said Eppell.
Though it looked smaller, it still weighs 130 tonnes, making for a complex project.
“We'll go across the bridge and replace all the segments, and we'll jack the bridge up. We may do some jacking before we get to the far end,” said Eppell.
The bigger lift will come later, pulling the whole bridge up two metres to accommodate reconstruction and make room for bigger container ships.
The bridge is slated to reopen at 5:30 a.m. on Monday.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ron Shaw.
