Winter weather has been dictating construction efforts on the new Liberty Memorial Bridge, keeping workers off the river for the most part and on the opposite shores of the Missouri River working on piers for the abutments.

On Thursday, Lunda Construction crews were pouring concrete on three west approach piers. Crews on the east side are working on a retaining wall under the bridge and preparing to work on the east side bridge abutment.

"Next week's forecast for a short return of winter weather shouldn't slow things down, too much," said North Dakota Department of Transportation project engineer Doug Fercho.

While engineers are looking for a return of spring weather, it also will pose problems of its own, NDDOT public information coordinator Mike Kopp said.

"While warmer weather will accompany spring, so also will road restrictions," Kopp said. "The heavy steel box girders will be arriving, and the NDDOT is looking for appropriate routes to have the contraction materials delivered to the work site."

Construction remains on schedule and area residents can expect to start seeing some major transformations in the new bridge during March.

"It's amazing how they've been able to stay on schedule," Kopp said. "It's not like the Four Bears Bridge, which always seemed to be seven or eight months behind schedule."

The box girders will be used for the approaches on either side of the bridge. They are being manufactured in Menoken, just east of Bismarck, and will travel a route along I-94 to Bismarck Expressway to the old Memorial Bridge, which they will travel over to get to the work site. The girders vary in size from 66 to 98 feet in length, and 40 will be used to make the east approach.

The east side retaining wall, visible from the bike path along River Road, was unveiled Thursday and can now be seen by the public. The work was done by Weiss and Sons.

The bridge is about 25 percent complete, the engineers said.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)