Crews overcome big challenges during critical bridge work in Everett

Everett’s Broadway Bridge was supposed to stay closed until March of next year, but the project has gone so well it’s going to wrap up nearly three months early.

“This is the way we like to see them go, that’s for sure,” said Ryan Sass, Everett’s city engineer. “You love to be able to have a good set of plans, a good contractor, have the weather cooperate. Just hats off to my traffic folks because they really did a great job on a detour route.”

Everett closed Broadway to replace the 102-year-old steel bridge over the railroad tracks just north of Hewitt Avenue, cutting Everett essentially in half.

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“The detour route was very effective, caused very little problems. We’re real pleased to see how it worked and be at the end of it now,” Sass said. There were never any big delays around the project.

Sass says the bridge is now all concrete and ready for decades of use.

“It was definitely at or beyond the end of its useful life. There wasn’t any structural elements that could be reused,” he explained. “It’s a completely new structure from the foundation below ground up.”

One of the big challenges of this project was the workers had to work around the train schedule. They could only work for a limited time before clearing the construction zone for the trains.

One side of the bridge looks higher than the other, which at first glance looks like an optical illusion. However, Sass says it was designed that way to give maximum clearance to the trains.

Cars, bikes and pedestrians should be able to use the bridge before the end of the year. There are some final touches left to do.

The contractor will earn a $50,000 bonus for finishing early.