Thursday, September 18

Fred-Med project sliding along

The weekend's pending rain has scrubbed plans to set bridge support beams forming the Fredericksburg Road bridge Saturday.

Bridge support beams were scheduled to be set at the Fred-Med intersection Saturday, requiring occasional closures of one lane on Medical Drive to provide space for the trucks to set up. Because of rain and the lane closure restrictions on the project, Texas Sterling has developed a plan to set the beams daily beginning Monday morning around 9:45. The work will stop by 3 p.m. each day.

Job bosses expect all beams - 38 in total - will be set by the end of the week. No lane closures will be used for this, though police will be used to direct traffic and get trucks into the work area. Trucks will come along Fredericksburg Road from I-410, then turn left onto Medical Drive.

The beams are being set on the west side of Fredericksburg Road in the middle of the future through lanes, allowing Texas Sterling Construction to build the bridge deck out of the way of Fredericksburg Road traffic. In late October Texas Sterling will close Federicksburg Road at Medical Drive to slide the bridge deck into place.

Though we are scheduled to have Federicksburg Road closed two weeks, this slide-in-place process Texas Sterling is bringing to Texas could mean the work is done much faster.

With access lanes built and traffic along Medical Drive in its final footprint, the through lanes of Medical Drive and the Fredericksburg Road are all that's really left to build on this project. Job bosses say work is on schedule to finish in time for its early 2015 end date.