ARNOLD Street will be closed for three weeks as the new Bendigo hospital project progresses.
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The road was closed between Barnard and Stewart streets from the early hours of Friday morning.
Workers arrived a few hours later to enable modules for a 135-tonne, 65-metre footbridge to be transported to the site.
The first module was mounted on stands by 9.45am on Friday.
The assembly of the air link bridge was expected to be finished by Sunday.
Works on a 358-piece facade and 54 cubic metres of concreting will start next week.
Traffic management will be in place at Arnold Street, between Barnard and Stewart streets, until December 16.
Matt Fishley, of Big Hill Cranes, said about 12 months of planning went into the assembly process.
Workers will erect the lower level of the two-tier footbridge, which arrived at the site in four pieces, on Saturday.
“Then we'll lift the upper sections on the Sunday, which will complete the bridge,” Mr Fishley said.
The upper level consists of six modules and will be used by hospital staff to transport patients arriving at the helipad.
The lower level will be open to the public and will connect the hospital to a 505-space car park.
“This precinct is going to be relieved of all those [parking] pressures we’ve had over the years,” Bendigo Health board chair, Bob Cameron, said.
“The new hospital has more than 200 [parking spaces] under it. That’s taken a lot of pressure out of the system, but suddenly, with an extra 505, we’re going to have that car parking relief that so many Bendigonians have looked forward to.”
Mr Cameron expected the new Bendigo Hospital Project to be finished by mid-2018.
Member for Bendigo East, Jacinta Allan, said ‘link weekend’ was a project milestone.
“Come Saturday night there will be one span over Arnold Street joining the two stages of the Bendigo Hospital Project and creating a united health precinct,” Ms Allan said.
“I’m sure, over the course of this link weekend, there will be plenty of people coming to get a chance to see this engineering feat at work.”