Fourth span of Saskatoon's Traffic Bridge taken out by explosives

More of Saskatoon's iconic, yet derelict Traffic Bridge camedown Sunday morningas crews used explosive charges to collapse another portion of the bridge, leavingone span left to be taken out later this year.

It wasa partial demolition, similar to the one last month, but one that used a modified method.

Usingone quarter of the explosives used on the previousJan. 10 demolition, crews detonated the charges at 8:30 a.m. CST. Three short beeps signalled a three-minute countdown to the boom,then one long beep signalled the explosion.

• Traffic Bridge demolition in Saskatoon goes off with resounding boom

After the explosive charges ignited, the bridge span partially fell onto a river bermconstructed below it. The top portion of the bridge remained resting on the pier adjacent to River Landing and the riverbank.

Earlier in the week, the city's special projects manager, DanWillems,said this method was used so toensure none of the retaining wall at River Landing is damaged.

After the demolition,Willems said that at first look, from the Broadway Bridge, there didn't appear to be any damage or issues with how the span fell onto the berm.

Willemssaid the takedown went according to plan.The next step is for workers to manually dismantle the span, he said.

Like the previous demolition, Sunday's wasmanagedby Graham Commuter Partners, who contracted demolition contractorRakowskiCartage andWrecking Ltd.

A few hundred people lined upon the Broadway Bridge to watch Sunday's explosion far fewer than the thousands whowere thereon the Jan. 10 takedown.

The city blocked off more than half of the Broadway Bridge so that curious onlookers were confined to a smallerportionof the bridge to watch.The rest of the bridgeremained empty and blocked offbecauseit waswithin the 250 metre radius of the exclusion zone.