Road And Bridge Project Near WSU Delayed Completion Of Pullman Construction Could Be A Year Late And $1 Million Over Budget

Local drivers tired of the 15-month-old Main Street bridge and road project should brace themselves for more.

The $7 million project, which the state hoped to finish for the current Washington State University football season, now won’t be done until late next summer or early fall.

A bevy of problems also has the project running substantially over budget. A Department of Transportation official said Wednesday that overruns could push the budget up another $1 million, but a department spokesman Thursday said it appears to be less than that.

The so-called Spring Street to Johnson Road project involves rebuilding Pullman’s Main Street viaduct and expanding it to four lanes. It also involves widening and straightening the roadway east to the Moscow-Pullman Highway.

At various times the project has squeezed traffic down to one lane on the bridge and stopped it altogether for blasting and removing rock.

Transportation officials told WSU President Sam Smith they hoped to have the work out of the way this fall, but several problems got in the way, said Al Gilson, a DOT spokesman.

The cleanup of petroleum products from a former Chevron storage area below the bridge required more training and procedures, Gilson said.

The pouring of concrete footings and foundations for a university housing project forced the project contractor, the Weaver Construction Co. of LaGrande, Ore., to use less powerful explosives when blasting rock to straighten the roadway’s “Deadman’s Curve,” he said.

Along with changes to a sewer line, the petroleum cleanup and blasting changes added $250,000 to the project’s costs, Gilson said.

The project’s delay was chiefly the result of delays in merging the Burlington Northern and Palouse River Railroad tracks, making way for a bridge pier. The cost of that delay has yet to be determined, Gilson said.

Prodded on Wednesday by Pat Patterson, a member of the state Transportation Commission, Eastern Washington DOT Director Jerry Lenzi said the overruns could be in the neighborhood of $1 million.

But Gilson said that estimate could have included $500,000 in work requested by WSU. The university will reimburse the state for the work, which includes sewer improvements on Stadium Way and changes at the university entrance, Gilson said.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Eric Sorensen Staff writer Staff writer Dan Hansen contributed to this report.