With a minimum of hassles, the Blatnik Bridge was closed to Wisconsin-bound traffic at Garfield Avenue in Duluth this morning.
The southbound lanes will be closed for about two weeks for gusset plate repair work. Motorists headed to Wisconsin are being detoured to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge (U.S. Highway 2).
The road closure and detour were well publicized with road signs and local media reports. A drive over both bridges as the closure began revealed no problems, although traffic did back up slightly at traffic lights on Superior's Belknap Street, onto which southbound U.S. Highway 53 traffic is being detoured.
Once the work affecting the Wisconsin-bound lanes is completed, one of those lanes will reopen and the Minnesota-bound lanes will close for approximately two weeks.
The project's contractor plans to work six days a week, 10 hours per day during good weather to minimize the duration of the lane closures.
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On May 6, one lane in each direction on the bridge were closed to lessen the load on the 7,980-foot long structure, after en-gineering calculations and field inspections determined that gusset plates at several locations did not meet the bridge's load requirement.
For additional information, visit the project Web site at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/projects/535-blatnik .
