A sidewalk on the 17th Street bridge, closed since a decorative fencing fell onto the Downtown Connector last August, should reopen after repairs are completed by year's end, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The Georgia Department of Transportation will spend $1.4 million using a new system to attach the 20-foot steel canopy arms of the bridge. A total of 714 linear feet of fencing and canopy will be rebuilt or reconnected. Construction is to start in September.
The sidewalk on the south side of the bridge has been closed since Aug. 13, when huge panels ripped from the bridge like a zipper and crashed onto six traffic lanes of I-75/I-85. No one was injured in the mishap. The bridge structure itself was not compromised, officials have said.
Explaining the new way the canopy will be attached, GDOT spokesman Mark McKinnon told Channel 2, "The bolts will go all the way through the barrier wall. There will be a steel plate on the back with a nut to make sure the bolt does not pull out."
"We feel like this is going to be a much safer way to hold up this structure," McKinnon said. "The structures are very heavy; each one is more than a thousand pounds. Having these bolts go all the way through with nuts on the back of them is just going to make them that much more secure."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in January that state transportation officials acknowledged a type of fast-set epoxy a federal advisory warned about in 2006 had been used in the 17th Street Bridge project. The epoxy will no longer be used in Georgia's bridge projects, officials have said.
Completed in 2004 at a cost of $38.2 million, the 17th Street bridge was built to carry traffic from Midtown to the new Atlantic Station development.
—Staff writer Katie Leslie contributed to this article.
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