State Highway 122 bridge project on Mason City’s west side could be done by end of the month

MASON CITY — The end is in sight for a highway detour in Mason City.

Pete Hjelmstad with the Iowa Department of Transportation says while it will be a few more weeks, the bridge replacement in the eastbound lanes of State Highway 122 on the city’s west side appears to be ahead of schedule.   “I think it was a week or two ago we were talking about probably into mid-November. If things go well, it should be open by the end of this month they’ve made really good progress.”

Hjelmstad says a number of factors go into bridge projects like this being completed.  “The big thing with these bridge projects is the main bridge contractor gets  the bridge itself done, but then you have somebody come in who has to do guard rail, and then you have another contractor who has to come in and maybe do some dirt work around before we can open it up. It’s getting all those subcontractors to fall in line as well, but things have been progressing really, really well, so we’re really hoping by the end of this month we can have that thing open to traffic. We’ll keep you updated as we go through October.”

You can check out a full list of the Iowa Department of Transportation road construction projects currently going on by heading to 511ia.org.