Max J. Kuney Co., of Spokane, has begun work on a $12.9 million bridge upgrade project in Wenatchee, Wash., for the Washington state Department of Transportation.

The project entails adding one additional lane to the Sen. George Sellar Bridge, which carries state Route 285 over the Columbia River between the cities of Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, says Kevin Carroll, a Max J. Kuney project manager. It also includes building a bicycle and pedestrian bridge adjacent to the busy steel arch bridge, Carroll says.

Kuney began work May 11 on the expected 15-month project. The 928-foot-long bridge currently has two traffic lanes in each direction, but three traffic lanes feed its eastbound lanes, which the DOT says creates traffic congestion on the bridge that will be worsened further by future planned roadwork on the west side of the river. When completed, the renovated bridge will have three eastbound lanes and two westbound lanes.

To accommodate the new traffic lane, Kuney is removing pedestrian sidewalks from both sides of the bridge, and also will add supports to the bridge to strengthen it for the extra weight that will be added by traffic on the new lane, Carroll says. The contractor also will widen the bridge approaches on both ends of the bridge, and will construct a 10-foot-wide separate bridge structure on the south side of the bridge to carry bicycle and pedestrian traffic, he says.

The majority of the work will be done at night to minimize impacts to the more than 60,000 vehicles that cross the bridge daily, Carroll says. During construction, a Wenatchee bus system will drive pedestrians across the bridge, he says.

With planning, design, engineering, and easement costs, the total project budget for the bridge work is about $16.5 million, the DOT says.