Kolekole Bridge is on track to reopen to heavy truck traffic by June, state officials said Thursday.
After the bridge’s weight limit was reduced to 4 tons last September — and raised to 12 tons later that month after initial repairs — Department of Transportation workers have continued emergency repairs in an effort to strengthen the aged bridge.
Ed Sniffen, deputy highways director for the DOT, said Thursday the bridge’s weight limit will be raised again to 40 tons in June, but work will still continue afterward.
The current phase of work, Sniffen said, is a $7.5 million emergency repair project that will replace much of the bridge’s substructure with an overhead trestle from which the bridge will be suspended.
“We’ll be flipping the bridge over, basically,” Sniffen said.
DOT engineer Rob Lee explained that the existing trusses beneath the bridge are the parts of the bridge that are the most corroded and unfit for service. Rather than replace them entirely, however, the DOT is instead installing a new series of steel girders beneath the bridge that will connect to a trestle above the bridge that will bear the bulk of its weight.
“People have been wondering what we’ve been doing, but later this month or next month, the steel above the bridge is gonna start going up, and people will say, ‘Oh, I get it,’” Lee said.
But Sniffen said the current construction is only emergency repair work, and permanent repairs to the bridge will be more expensive — $40 million.
Work could begin on those permanent repairs by 2024, Sniffen said, thanks in part to an infusion of $2.8 billion to support state infrastructure through President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill last year.
U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, who visited the bridge Thursday, said she “wanted to see a ‘before’ picture” of the bridge before it gets fully repaired.
“It’s the biggest infusion of infrastructure funding to the state in history, I think,” Hirono said of the bill.
Sniffen also thanked the county administration for its assistance in repairing the state-owned bridge. While the bridge repairs have been underway, the county has closed Kolekole Beach Park to the public, but allowed DOT to set up a station in the park’s parking lot to paint steel for use on the bridge.
“This project is huge for us,” Mayor Mitch Roth said Thursday. “(When the weight limit dropped), it had a huge impact for all the emergency services in the area, and of course all the commerce that goes down the highway.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.