Living as we do in the metro Denver area, we’ve been keeping an eye on the ongoing build-out (called FasTracks) of our light rail system. This past weekend, RTD shut down 6th Avenue (an arterial highway through town) in one section so a light rail bridge could be rolled over it — apparently the first time in the U.S. that this has been done with a bridge of this size (286 feet long, 600 tons).

My daughter and I were at loose ends Saturday morning, so we went out to see the goings on:

OK, I wouldn’t call it a particularly dynamic event (the construction folks allocated 30 hours for the rollout, but were done in half the time), but it was fun to swing by and see a taste of what’s to come in about 2 more years. Here’s a better view from the east:

And one from the Union St. overpass looking along 6th Avenue toward downtown (i.e., to the east):

It’s so weird seeing this normally busy highway shutdown like this… RTD also put up a time lapse video of the process, it condenses all the activity into a minute of video: