Montrose Road bridge construction

Dan & I just took a walk over to the closed section of Montrose Road. They are well on their way to creating the new bridge over Old Farm Creek. The photos here were taken while walking on the St. Elizabeth's Church side of the street, heading east toward East Jefferson Street. You can see the Montrose Parkway veering off to the right. To recap what the construction is all about:

1. Montrose Road used to have a "dip" over Old Farm Creek between St. Elizabeth's Church and Treeline Way (townhouses). The creek passed under Montrose Road through a small culvert. They are raising Montrose Road about 7' above where is used to be, eliminating much of the dip, removing the culvert, and building a bridge over the creek that will be large enough to accommodate a wildlife crossing beneath it. I believe that they are also talking about having a human path (bike path? - I'll be checking on this) to link our new parkway bike path to the north side of Montrose Road, into Rockville.
2. Once Montrose Road, traveling westbound, crosses the new bridge over the creek, it will veer left (south, and away from St. Elizabeth's) to intersect with the parkway. When you are on the parkway, you can see what looks like an incomplete intersection, with the booms for the traffic lights already installed. That's where Montrose Road will tie into Montrose Parkway.
3. The part of the old Montrose Road that went in front of St. Elizabeth's (between Tildenwood Drive and the new Montrose Road/Montrose Parkway intersection) will be removed.

So, here are the pictures of the construction so far...

View eastward from Tildenwood Drive & Montrose Road, taken from the north side. You can see the parkway veering off to the right. The construction is further along on the left, on the closed section of Montrose Road.

Here is where the construction begins, just past St. Elizabeth's old entrance.

Continuing eastward, they built a temporary footbridge over the creek for pedestrians & bicyclists. This will be removed after the new roadway is opened.

Standing on the footbridge, this is the view north into the Rockville side.

Turn around in the same spot, and this is the view south into the construction of the new Montrose Road bridge. The cylinder is the old culvert that used to go under Montrose Road, with Old Farm Creek channelized through it. Flanking each side of the culvert are the forms, under construction, for the embankments of the new bridge. You can see how much higher it will be than the old roadbed was.

More of the same. Montrose Parkway is in the distance, past the strip of trees.

We have crossed the pedestrian bridge and are now standing in the middle of Montrose Road, near the townhouses, looking back (west) across the gulf where they are building the bridge (between where the cranes are). It is apparent that the "dip" is now pretty much gone. On this side, they are also working on building the new roadbed.