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After slipups, a showpiece
By Times Staff
Published August 18, 2005
 [Times photo: Jim Damaske]
After 1,268 days, after concrete twisted and roadway fell, after a lawsuit and threats and angst, the $69.3-million Clearwater Memorial Causeway bridge opens this morning - 514 days late.
Crews will push aside barriers blocking the bridge's eastbound lanes and a vanguard of city vehicles will make the inaugural trip.
Westbound lanes will open Friday.
For more than three years, passers-by have watched the sleek, 74-foot-tall span rise, and fall, and rise again. They followed the pitfalls, engineering flaws and construction gaffes. Now for the first time, they'll cross the 2,340-foot bridge, taking in its curves, its smell, its views.
Clearwater gets its showpiece, after all.
[Last modified August 18, 2005, 06:06:03]
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