Watch: A highway bridge rolled into place

TORONTO – While many spend their weekends enjoying the summer heat, construction crews are out there building transit projects. Recently the entire bridge that crosses Highway 400 at Finch Avenue West was replaced.

The bigger they are, the slower they move, right? Not exactly.

A few short weeks ago an entire 1,500 tonne bridge spanning the Highway 400 was dismantled and replaced in just two weekends.  The complete move was documented on Metrolinx News.

If replacing a massive bridge in a matter of days isn’t impressive enough, a newly released video speeds the whole process up into just four minutes.

Check out time lapse video:

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Over the weekends of June 12-15 and June 19-22, construction crews worked around the clock to remove the old Highway 400 bridge in Northwest Toronto and move the new one into place using some very specialized equipment.

Leading up to the big lift, the team worked to setup large steel scaffolding on the sites, install 60 concrete girders, tons of rebar and poured 800 cubic metres of concrete that would form each a bridge weighing as much as seven adult blue whales.

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Story by: Erika D’Urbano, Metrolinx communications senior advisor, with files from Scott Money, senior advisor media relations. Click here to follow Metrolinx projects.