The Flagler Memorial Bridge Is Still Under Construction

The Flagler memorial bridge is still under construction and it looks like it might stay that way for longer than Town of Palm Beach residents expected.

Over the many long months of its construction, residents of the Town of Palm Beach have become more than familiar with the sights and sounds of heavy equipment and construction workers laboring over the completion of the Flagler Memorial Bridge; not to mention how intimately some of the Island’s daily commuters have gotten to know the traffic delays that comes with such a big transportation project.

Unfortunately for those residents who might have found the traffic issues associated with the Flagler Bridge project, at the very least, inconvenient, you might have to wait a little bit longer than officials had first expected for the bridge to open up completely.

The Flagler Memorial bridge, which was originally set to have four lanes open by November 1^st, is instead going to start by opening up two lanes to the public, one going in each direction.

The Flagler Memorial Bridge Is Still Under Construction

During this week’s Town Council meeting, Senior Project Engineer at New Millennium Engineering, Geoffrey Parker, told the Town Council that “The final elements are being installed, railings, light poles. We do hope to have the next milestone occur in two to three weeks, which is functional checkout. Basically, you try and fail the bridge. If it passes, traffic can be on the bridge.”

This “soft opening” of the bridge is likely to help engineers find and solve any issues that might occur in a much controllable setting than if all of the new bridge’s lanes were open at once. “The engineers think it’s better to keep the lanes to one lane of traffic in each direction instead of four. We had hoped to have four lanes of traffic on the new bridge by Nov. 1” Parker added.

The Flagler Memorial Bridge is expected to be fully opened in February of the upcoming year.