Reggie I haven't been to that side of Towakoni in years are you talking about the west side of the bridge or the East side?

I think they built a 2 mile bridge over a lake faster than a 1 mile bridge over land in Royce City.

Nope supposed to be done in 2012. Still not complete 2016. Only 2 of 4 lanes on new bridge are done.

The last I heard / read was that it is scheduled to be finished next Spring sometime. Not sure how fast they can remove the old bridge but I wish the new bridge had crossmembers. The more structure for the fish the better.

Must be the same company that refurbished Hwy. 154 between Sulphur Springs and Yantis, and there already having to go back and re-do half of it for potholes.

At one time years ago they were going to leave part of the old bridge and make it into a park with fishing, walking, bicycling, etc. Don't know what happened to that idea.

I worked in the Environmental Division at TxDOT and can confirm the old bridge will almost entirely be removed. There is a device that shears the old "pilings" so that they can be pulled. Yes, it is a shame a section on each end couldn't have been retained for a State or privately owned fishing pier (like at the coast). Tawakoni is such a "fishy" lake it would have been a great asset for bank fishermen! As a side note, we deed an extensive survey along the entire reach of the bridge to survey for endangered and threatened mussels, but didn't find any.

its ok the fish will just move to the new bridge

too many to count

That old bridge was in really rough shape.

I don't think you wanted to keep any of it around.

In fact if I had taken pics from underneath you would not want to drive across it period.

Scary.

The new one got put into service just in the nick of time as far as I'm concerned.

There were ramps on both sides of the bridge. The east side ramp was the closest to the bridge (about 25 yards). Even when I launched the big boat I seldom fired fired up the big motor because my fishing spot was so close. With the small boat I could hop from pillar to pillar until I found some fish. It is my all time favorite summer fishing spot because you were out of the sun and the crappie and eater size blues were always in a biting mood. Is the new bridge higher than the old one. I ask because any rod over 6ft was a pain to use under that low lying bridge. I hope they hurry up and get it fixed.

There is more room under the new bridge

They pull those pillars like wisdom teeth and recycle everything. Rebar sold as scrap and concrete is pulverized and reused.

When they tore down the Sabine river bridge in Logansport recently, they took the top off and blew up the columns. Saw it first hand.

Like Keyboard said...they are taking them out. They grab onto them with this arm looking thing and just pull them out of the ground, load them on a semi and away he goes.

When done, it will be as if it was never there.