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After Months Of Delays, Still-Unfinished Myers Bridge Reopens To Pedestrian Traffic

Sarah Fentem
/
WBAA

On Sunday afternoon, a handful of pedestrians, steeling themselves against the frigid January temperatures, made their way across the Wabash, their collars turned against the riverfront wind. 

The cold weather made celebrating unreasonable, but the day marked the first weekend pedestrians were able to walk across the Myers Bridge after months of construction delays.

Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski says work on the bridge, which connects Riehle Plaza on the east with West Lafayette's Tapawingo Park, still won’t be completely finished until next spring, but after a closure that went on nearly twice as long as planned, the city is eager to put the delays behind it.

"There’s just not much else we can do right now 'til the weather does get considerably better, because a lot of the work that needs to be done is weather-dependent," he says. "We just don’t want to cause that inconvenience."

Roswarski says the city engineer has inspected the bridge and deemed it safe to walk across despite being unfinished. He iterates most of the work on the bridge was structural and can’t be seen, and the remaining jobs are mostly cosmetic ones—cleaning up welds, completing paint jobs and installing pavers.

The bridge was originally scheduled to open last summer, but was impeded by weather delays and construction problems, most notably issues with the bridge’s custom-made railings. Late delivery and sloppy workmanship of the railings pushed the bridge’s re-opening back four months. 

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