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Workers have begun the final phase of an effort to improve the 92-year-old Burnside Bridge.

Crews from Hamilton Construction and its subcontractors are repairing the concrete underside of the bridge on the east side of the Willamette River, near Northeast Second Avenue. Work should wrap up in early 2019, Multnomah County spokesman Mike Pullen said.

The section of bridge being repaired sits directly above the popular Burnside Skatepark, which is now closed during work hours – from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. It will otherwise remain open for use.

The current work is part of the Burnside Bridge Maintenance Project, which is a piece of the county’s 2015 Willamette River Bridges Capital Improvement Plan.

The Burnside Bridge Maintenance Project is intended to make the bridge serviceable for another 15 to 20 years while a long-term solution is drawn up and carried out. Crews will repair cracked and crumbling concrete, renovate the drawbridge motor and controls, perform electrical upgrades, fix rusting steel framework, repair pavement and sidewalks and overhangs and railings, replace expansion joints, repair cracks in the piers, repair concrete columns and beams and girders, paint steel trusses, and repair internal steel towers connected to the piers.

Hamilton Construction is carrying out the work, which is valued at a total of $18 million to $22 million. As part of the current work, crews will remove and patch damaged concrete and install bands of fiber-reinforced polymer over the concrete to extend structural life.

Then, in late January or early February 2019, the south half of the bridge will reopen to traffic and the north half will close to accommodate repairs. The bridge will continue to provide use of one westbound lane, two eastbound lanes and multiuse paths.