Rendering courtesy of RTD and Denver Transit Construction Group shows the completed basic bridge span over Wadsworth, with future conceptual development nearby.

By Kevin Flynn
Inside-Lane.com

Construction of the FasTracks West Corridor light rail project will reach a milestone next week with three overnight closures of Wadsworth Boulevard at 13th Avenue to set girders on what is planned to be Lakewood’s signature bridge.

The Wadsworth Station on the West Corridor will be smack on top of the bridge. Lakewood is negotiating with RTD to pay for an extra $2.6 million in “betterments” to upgrade the bridge and make it the center of the city’s transit-oriented redevelopment of the area.

View across Wadsworth looking west shows the concrete bridge pier sitting between two steel falsework supports, with the west bridge abutment behind it all. Inside Lane photo.

Starting at 7 p.m. next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, crews will close off one lane of Wadsworth in each direction to start staging for each night’s work. Then at 10 p.m., Wadsworth will be closed to traffic entirely between 10th and Colfax avenues.

The street is scheduled to reopen each morning by 5:30 a.m. The work is, as always, weather-dependent and could change. Inside Lane will keep you informed if that happens.

While local access to nearby streets will be permitted during the closures, overnight through-traffic is being advised to use Sheridan Boulevard or Kipling Street.

Welders for Edward Kraemer & Sons prepare steel falsework framing to help support next week's girder installation at Wadsworth and 13th Avenue. Inside Lane photo.

The schedule for the work goes like this:

The west side span girders will be placed Monday night. The east side girders are set for Tuesday night. The big ones over Wadsworth get placed on Wednesday night.

The heaviest girders weigh more than 41 tons. The side-span girders are 64 feet in length.

Kathy Berumen of Denver Transit Construction Group said the bridge work is on schedule. Already, DTCG’s subcontractors have set girders for the light rail bridges at Kipling Street, Colfax Avenue, Sixth Avenue North Frontage Road, the tunnel under Interstate 70, two bridges in Dry Gulch, one over Lakewood Gulch and at Decatur Street, as well as on the southbound lanes of the new Federal Boulevard vehicular bridge that will go over the tracks.

The West Corridor light rail line is scheduled to open in 2013, likely around mid-year, after construction completion allows RTD to conduct a period of testing on it, as it has done with all its other lines.

For information on upcoming construction activities, you can view the West Corridor Construction Information Page here for the West Corridor. To speak to Berumen about construction activities, call 720-989-8099.

You can view a slideshow of the preparations here. The photos were taken on Thursday.

To expand to full screen and read the captions, first click on the “play” button and then click on the box that will appear at the lower right corner — with the four little arrows pointing outward. When the full screen appears, click on “Show Info” at the menu bar on the top right.