By Zach Friend
First, the good news.
As I’m sure you’ve seen, crews are continuing to drill for the shoring system, which walls off either side of the canyon to allow crews to work.
The contractor conducting the drilling experienced some issues with the fill caving in, and has now switched to using casings for the borings to prevent that from happening. That takes slightly longer than traditional methods so work has been slower on this than expected but the delay is minimal.
You may have noticed all of the utility work the last few weeks, with AT&T also moving the last of its telephone utility lines. In that area there are gas, water, telephone and fiber optic lines as well as overhead electrical.
Crews have completed the gravity slow creek diversion system, which is a bypass for Trout Creek and is also needed to allow crews to work in the canyon.
Now the biggest challenge: The last of the utility movements, and an essential element for the project, is movement of the overhead PG&E lines. According to discussions with PG&E this week, PG&E now plans to move its overhead utilities beginning the week of June 26 – this date is a few weeks behind the original date that was planned from PG&E and will have an impact on our overall bridge opening schedule as a result.
Due to the complexity of the removal, PG&E engineers were concerned that residents would lose power for an extended period of time if an adequate redundancy weren’t established. While they now have plans in place for such a situation (in the unlikely scenario that it arises), their original timeline for moving the lines has been delayed to later this month. We’ve been assured that they will attempt to move the date up from the 26th as much as possible and try to adhere to our original bridge opening schedule, but my take is that it will be delayed by some amount of time at this point.
The contractor is still able to do other work while waiting for the overhead lines to be moved (such as drilling for the shoring system, and drilling for the foundation of the temporary bridge), but some time will be lost with this delay. It won’t impact being open before school starts but based on the delay being a few weeks past when they expected to start I can assume it could delay the bridge opening by the same amount of time.
If I get a more updated timeline from PG&E I will share it and once they get the lines down we will have the most accurate timeline for bridge opening.
Lizz Williams is the contact with PG&E if residents have questions about this specifically. lhw6@pge.com
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As always, if you have any questions or concerns please feel free to drop me a line at 454-2200 or zach.friend@santacruzcounty.us – Every day there is construction out there is a day closer to this being done! Hopefully we can minimize any delay from the PG&E overhead line movement. Best- Zach