The city of Spokane Valley has selected a Great Falls, Mont., contractor to build a new $11.3 million bridge to carry Barker Road over the Spokane River.


The contractor, Morgen & Oswood Construction Co., is expected to begin work on the bridge-replacement project this month, says Carolbelle Branch, the citys spokeswoman.


The river crossing will be closed for the year-and-a-half-long project, because the contractor likely will remove the current bridge before it builds the new bridge, says Ken Knutson, the citys coordinator for the project.


The project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2009.


Branch says the aging, 36-foot-wide Barker Road Bridge, which was built in 1952, is a two-lane span roughly halfway between Interstate 90 and Trent Avenue that carries 7,500 vehicles across the river daily.


The closest alternate bridges that cross the river are on Sullivan and Harvard roads. Sullivan is about two miles west of Barker, and Harvard Road is two miles east of Barker.


The new Barker Road Bridge will be about 72 feet wide, and will have bicycle lanes and wide sidewalks, Branch says. It will have two support piers, while the old bridge has five.


As part of the project, a parking area with river access will be added on the east side of the bridge to accommodate recreational uses of the river, such as kayaking, rafting, and fishing.


The Spokane office of Denver-based CH2M Hill Inc. designed and engineered the project.


It will be mostly funded through a $10 million federal bridge-replacement grant from the Federal Highway Administration, Branch says.


The project has been in the citys transportation improvement plan since 2003, when the city determined that the bridge, which was built to old construction standards, had degraded to the point that it would be less expensive to replace than to rehabilitate, Branch says.


Since then, weight restrictions on the bridge have limited trucks traveling over it to 25 tons, and trucks with trailers to 35 tons.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.