Here’s when the North State Street bridge is finally set to open
Drivers heading to downtown Bellingham on North State Street won’t face a detour of several blocks when the new bridge over Whatcom Creek opens after a year-long construction project.
Its opening is slated before 5 p.m. Friday, April 22, the city said in its weekly online construction update.
Cost of the $3.2 million project to replace the 80-year-old span was funded with a federal grant for bridge replacement, the city said at its website.
Some work still must be completed, including road striping.
During construction, the old bridge’s wooden pilings were removed and replaced with concrete supports that aren’t in the creek itself.
Construction had been planned initially for spring 2019 and then for spring 2020, according to previous Bellingham Herald reporting.
An initial delay was caused by the 2018 federal government shutdown, which prevented city officials from gaining a permit to work in a salmon stream.
In 2020, several of the city’s construction projects were delayed in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic.
COVID-19 also delayed the current project as supply-chain issues dragged its construction to one year instead of the planned nine-month contract timeline, said city project engineer Aric Smathers.
That means the contractor could be fined $3,200 per day past the established contract working days, Public Works Department spokeswoman told The Bellingham Herald.
“The city is in the process of reviewing this and will determine an outcome once the project is complete,” Cloud said in an email.
Some 17,000 drivers use the bridge daily, according to 2017 data from the Whatcom Council on Governments.
