Liberty Bridge construction impacting some ice fishing, snowmobiling on Saginaw River

By James Felton, James Paxson

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    BAY CITY, Michgan (WNEM) — Work on the Liberty Bridge in Bay City is underway despite being hit by winter weather.

Crews needed to put a crane into place to stay on track.

“We’re starting work on the Liberty Bridge in Bay City and in order to do that we needed a crane on-site, on the water,” said Kevin Bischel, project delivery director for United Bridge Partners.

Bischel said the crane is necessary to start the work brought to the bridge by way of a barge that was assembled on the water. Once assembly was complete, the crane drove onto the barge and was taken to the construction site.

Above the water, motorists in the area will encounter reduced lanes on the bridge.

“It was two lanes in each direction and reduced it down to one lane in each direction. It will be that way for a few months. In the spring we will have a period where we’ll probably have all the lanes closed, probably in April or May, for a period while we work on finishing up the electrical and mechanical work,” Bischel said.

Bischel said everything is on schedule thanks in part to breaking up the ice on that area of the Saginaw River.

“We’re sorry that we impacted the ice fishing community and the snowmobilers, but we’re looking to actually do a sponsorship with Shiver on the River hopefully here to make up for a little of the inconvenience while the river was open for ice,” Bischel said.

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