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State Street Bridge to close again for Riverwalk work 12-Aug-14 – So that three remaining caissons can be installed underneath, the State Street Bridge will close for ten days, starting on Wednesday morning. The bridge will be raised on Wednesday at 6 a.m. and will remain open until the afternoon of August 23. Caissons are long tubes filled with concrete that will anchor the Riverwalk to the riverbed. When the State Street Bridge was last closed to traffic in July to install caissons, it re-opened four days ahead of schedule. The Chicago Department of Transportation declined to comment on why the work finished early. CDOT did, however, quantify how much concrete was poured in late July and early August in what it said was the project’s largest concrete pour so far. 700 cubic yards of concrete were poured between Dearborn Street and LaSalle Street. That much concrete would fill a 2,360 square foot house, assuming eight-foot ceilings.
(Above) The concrete went between Dearborn and Clark Streets, into a large space between the old Riverwalk and new river wall called the “deadman,” seen in this photo from CDOT on July 30. The black pipes are for drainage. The concrete wall with green rebar sticking out on top is over steel piles that were driven into the riverbed. The rods extending from this “pile cap” are called “tiebacks.”
Between Clark and LaSalle Streets this week, CDOT will continue pumping out water, back-filling the space with crushed stone, building wooden forms, and then pouring more concrete into the forms. Construction equipment starts up at 6:30 every morning except Sunday. Work hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.
(Above) How traffic will be detoured around the State Street Bridge – cars and trucks in orange and bicycles in green. The sidewalk on the north side of Wacker Drive and two of the three westbound lanes will not be available while the State Street Bridge is closed.
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