Bagley Bridge completion possibly delayed

ALPENA, Mich. — Construction on the Bagley Street bridge has hit a few road bumps.

Ryan Brege, Managing Director at the Road Commission, told WBKB crews likely won’t complete the project by the end of construction season.

Brege said the bridge’s approaches required a re–design after workers discovered problems with the soil. Specifically, the dirt on the north side is too weak to support the original retaining wall.

Although the redesign is complete, another obstacle looms over the project: the end of construction season.

“We’re running into construction season time limit issues. Basically, we need weather adequate to pave the approaches once they’re constructed. And  we don’t know, going into November, if we’ll have that.”

Brege said supply chain issues and a lack of workers have hurt the project as well.

Despite this, he said there’s still hope for your daily commute.

“Our goal at this point is to be able to temporarily place approaches to the bridge in order to move traffic off the detour for the winter.”

In other words, he hopes crews get the bridge into a drive-able state for the winter, and then build the permanent approaches in 2022.

We’ll keep you updated as construction continues.