The Route 104 bridge in the heart of historic Oswego has now been closed for two weeks, and will remain closed for several months. At Oswego, Route 104 spans the Oswego River, second in volume only to the Niagara River as a tributary to Lake Ontario. During the summer, Route 104 carries a good portion of New York State’s Seaway Trail traffic, so the closing and resulting detours should be considered in making overland travel plans. The closing will not impact recreational boaters, other than during certain periods when Lock 8, adjacent to the eastern side of the bridge, will be temporarily closed. The project is expected to be complete late this year.

The bridge on Sunday, April 13

To date, the traffic plan devised by state and local authorities has been working well. The plan diverts local traffic to the Utica Street bridge (a half mile south). Delays have been short and confined to the busier morning and afternoon drive times.

Not without a certain amount of tongue in cheek, local observers say that because local police officers stationed at either end of the Utica Street bridge haven’t tried to help too much, they’ve made major contributions to smooth traffic flow. The officers will step in and direct traffic to expedite things for emergency vehicles, but otherwise they haven’t interfered.

This is a variation on the long-time local joke that has its origins in the huge annual traffic snarls that follow the Harborfest fireworks display each summer. With an officer ignoring the traffic control signals and directing traffic at every important intersection, it seems as if essentially, you can’t get where you’re going from where you are for at least an hour after the fireworks end. If police would only stop trying to help, things would go a heck of a lot better.

Progress update: 

It appears that whole sections of the old bridge will be lifted out one by one. Today, the crew is using a Komatsu Shovel to pick out the guard fence and crews are jackhammering through the concrete sidewalks over each bridge support.

A Kobatsu PC2000 Shovel plucks a section of guard rail. What a machine: 430,000 lbs and can grab 14.4 Cu yds with one bite.

The red steel underneath the spans was put in position last fall, mostly at night. It appears to be the framework for the lifting slings. We're looking forward to seeing the actual lifting of the spans.