Downtown Batavia bridge reopens after more than a year

It's true - the Batavia bridge is actually open.

No more setbacks or delays. Two-way traffic, two parking lanes and two sidewalks on the Wilson Street bridge opened at 3 p.m. today. It had been closed since February 2007.

There's still more work to do, most notably on the underside of the bridge, but that shouldn't affect traffic.

The most drivers will have to deal with now are workers taking up a few parking spots for about a week to install sidewalk pavers.

"On the top side, everything left is details," said Terry Heffron, the city's bridge liaison.

The bridge's new streetlights were turned on Monday night, and the switch from temporary to permanent traffic lights will be on Friday.

The remaining work depends largely on river levels. There's about 2 to 3 months of work to do underneath the bridge on excavation, building retaining walls, taking down scaffolding and finishing bike path connections. But river levels need to come down before that work can start.

Part of the project's coffer dam, which holds back water so work can be done on the sides of the river, was removed last month amid flooding concerns. So that needs to be rebuilt, then pumped out before any work can be done on the sides of the river.

"During a normal season, the river would come down in February or March," Heffron said. "But it never came down. All we can do now is hope the river starts to drop."

The bridge is opening to two-way traffic almost five months late. The original end date was Dec. 14.