These are exciting days for sidewalk superintendents as the big beams for the new Bayview LRT Station were put in place.

The beams are precast concrete:

The design of the structure is the same as Booth Street overpass / Pimisi Station and other structures on the line, so familiarity and standardization makes the job go faster.

The Confederation Line runs on the top of the bridge structure being built. Some of the beams are placed lower in the centre, to hold the track, and the side beams are placed higher, to support the passenger platforms:

The beams are brought to the site on flat bed trucks with extendable centre portions to carry the extra long loads. The longest “conventional” trailers we see in the city are 53′.

Bayview is excellent for sidewalk engineers, as there is a paved path on the north side of the site, and the Albert Street sidewalk on top of the road bridge, which thus allows us to view the new bridge from several perspectives.

Here is a view from Albert Street, right at the start of the overpass guardrail, which is where the future entry plaza to the new station’s east entrance will be:

Here is an artists guess as to what the entry plaza might look like, from the same viewpoint as the pic above:

There is a veritable forest of concrete posts that were set 32′ down to bedrock (and nested 2′ into that bedrock) to hold up the elevators and stairs and platforms:

Looking straight down over the “old” OTrain Trillium platform, it is apparent that the tracks in this alignment could readily be extended to the Prince of Wales Bridge and Gatineau without running into the posts. You’ll have to be a keener and good squinter to make out the following picture.

The old track with a yellow and black checkered sign ends right before the blue construction fence in the shadow at the bottom of the picture; the short step ladder goes up onto the old OTrain platform, and the blue lifter in centre field is where  track(s) could be extended northwards … this is also the alignment of the MUP where it goes under the station.

The existing OTrain Trillium Line is also in for some work.

At the dead end streets, work has commenced to actually connect the streets to the pathway, providing safer access for pedestrians and cyclists.

Here’s the current situation …

And, a bit further south, some new structures are going in place for fare gates on the Trillium stations:

For those who wish some bilingual content: