NIPIGON -- Crews working on the Nipigon River Bridge Saturday morning were able to complete a task in two hours that was expected to take four.
The second planned closure on Sunday from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. has been cancelled, although a release from the Ministry of Transportation says additional 15-minute closures may still occur throughout the weekend.
The closures were announced last week to ensure workers were able to meet the province's goal of opening the bridge to two lanes by the end of February.
If crews are able to complete work by Sunday, the bridge will have taken 42 days to fix, the same amount of time between its Nov. 29 grand opening and the Jan. 10 incident when bolts holding the girder to the bearing on an expansion joint broke.
The split on the new bridge attracted national attention as its closure divided Eastern and Western Canada along Highway 11/17, the only road passage across the country.
Laboratories in Ottawa and London, Ont. are currently testing the bolts to determine the cause of their failure.
