St. Croix Bridge Edges Closer To Completion

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The bond between Minnesota and Wisconsin will soon be stronger.

The massive St. Croix Crossing Bridge is taking shape at last. Crews cast the final segment of the bridge last week.

Aerial shots show just how things are progressing. In 2013, crews broke ground on the project, which is set to cost more than $600 million.

The opening date has been pushed back, but Minnesota Department of Transportation Engineer Paul Kivisto says things are falling into place.

"To see the hard work of everybody, from planning and engineering, design, to all the construction, the materials, all that, it's rewarding and exciting to see it come to this point," Kivisto said.

WCCO hopped in a pontoon to take a closer look. Piers 8 and 9 are in place and cabled up. The cables are not just for decoration.

"They're carrying some of the dead load and some of the wide load," Kivisto said. "Dead load being the weight of the concrete, the segments themselves. Wide load [is] the weight of the traffic, the semis and so forth."

To fully understand their strength, we climbed inside the soon-to-be- sealed underside to talk to Terry Zoller, the project's construction manager.

"They pull it to a million pounds of force. It holds the bridge up, and this is what actually holds the bridge up," Zoller said.

MnDOT says if you were to take all the cables it takes to build this bridge and lay them end to end, they would stretch to New Orleans and back.

All the cables and all the piers were supposed ready for traffic this coming fall, but the project has been delayed a full year.

"Overall, the construction just takes quite a while," Kivisto said. "Takes a little bit longer to get going, and now once the learning curve is well established, they're moving along very, very well."

The project is expected to be completed by fall of 2017, and Kivisto says the scenic drive will be worth the wait for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

MnDOT says the project has also had an outstanding safety record, with no major injuries to workers on scene.