Black River Bridge opened to public on County Road 478

CHAMPION — A bridge in Champion on County Road 478 had a ribbon cutting this afternoon and is now ready for vehicles to make their way across.

In 2016 Marquette County Road Commission received funding from the Michigan Local Bridge program to build a new bridge for County Road 478.
The original bridge was from 1920s and was structurally inefficient, so they county got the project to make a new bridge going with funding from the federal, state and local governments.The production of the bridge was started around July 8th of this year and is now 100% complete.

“We put a wider structure in here and improved the approaches,” explained Kurt Taavola, Director of Engineering for the Marquette County Road Commission. “In conjunction with Humboldt Township and we also paved from County Road 601 into the bridge, which is roughly about 2 miles. So that improved that whole approach to the bridge, the pavement surface and a lot safer ride for the public.”

At the end of the ribbon cutting of the new Black River Bridge there was a walk for anyone who wanted to check out the bridge. The crews who were apart of the construction of the new bridge were also rewarded a nice gesture from the community with a key to the town.