By Robert King -- Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — Construction crews are making visible progress on the second half of the bridge that carries U.S. 340-522 across the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.

Workers have started assembling steel beams on the west side of the bridge.

Traffic turned over onto three lanes of the new bridge in July 2007. When the $19 million project is completed next year, the bridge will feature five lanes, as well as bike paths and sidewalks on each side.

"We are moving on with installing the structural steel beams for the second half of the bridge," said Ben Lineberry, the area construction manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation's Luray residency, which covers Warren, Clarke and Page counties. "Once we set those steel beams, then we will be able to pour the concrete for the riding

Lineberry said the new construction would not affect motorists in the immediate future.

"All of the work we are doing on the second half of the bridge should be behind the concrete barriers so there shouldn't be any impact to traffic," he said.

Lineberry said it would take at least a couple of months to finish the steel work.

"It takes three weeks to get all the beams all the way across from one end of the bridge to the other," he said. "There is a lot of cross bracing that has to be installed, and then start the form work for the concrete deck and then the reinforcing steel that goes inside the concrete deck."

After the concrete deck is built, the contractor, Maryland-based Flippo Construction, will work on sliding traffic over to the new lanes.

VDOT hopes to move traffic onto the new lanes next spring, Lineberry said.

Even though traffic will be moved onto the new lanes next spring, the project is not scheduled to be completed until September 2009.

The reason for that is VDOT still has to perform work on intersections near the bridge.

"We have to finish the reconstruction of the intersection of Va. 55 and U.S. 340 [for the] reconstruction of the traffic signal," Lineberry said. "[We] will have some road work to do at [the] intersection of Duck Street and [U.S.] 340."

Lineberry said the contractor is a little bit ahead of schedule.

A part of the old bridge was demolished in early February.

The condition and age of the old bridge, originally built in 1941, prompted the replacement project.

* Contact Robert King at rking@nvdaily.com