COLORADO SPRINGS — The southwest downtown pedestrian bridge will begin to take shape Monday morning.
With the construction of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic museum, the downtown area is undergoing $2 billion renovations, including a 550-ton bridge.
Work will take place during an eight-hour window. Crews will set specialized transport ramps across four main railroad tracks. The crews then need to move the bridge over the ramps, and then remove the ramps to allow traffic flow to resume.
This plan has been in development for decades. The bridge was designed by the same team as the adjacent U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum Complex. The team got the idea for this bridge by watching athletes. They were inspired by the gravity-defying motion that athletes often display when they perform, and wanted to embody that with this bridge.
This structure is 250 feet and has interlocked loops, stretching from either side of the rail-yard, connecting the museum and the park.
"This is a vision that has been in place for multiple decades the idea of connecting America the beautiful park to downtown Colorado Springs has been a vision for a long time," said Ryan Phipps, Senior Engineer for the city of Colorado Springs. "It's great that we get to bring that vision to reality."
The pedestrian bridge will be open to the public in early 2021. To watch the installment, click here.
