South Charleston -- Officials put the final concrete in place on the bridge's 760 foot main section, making it the longest span of its type in North America, but the entire length of the bridge is much longer.

"Probably the most difficult problem was to make that continues and has no expansion joints for almost 3,000 feet," said Santiago Rodriguez, the designer of the bridge.

The project includes 8 spans totaling nearly 3,000 feet. Segments are pieced together outward from the bridge piers until all the piers are connected.

"This will be the main thoroughfare during the morning rush hour into Charleston. The adjacent interstate bridge will take take all the traffic west bound out of Charleston so it will relieve congestion on this section of I-64," said Secretary Paul Mattox of the West Virginia Department of Transportation.

This type of bridge design has many advantages as opposed to a steel bridge. For starters, it will last longer.

"It really creates a bridge that has a greater service life, maybe up to a hundred years or in excess of a hundred years if we're lucky, compared to a concrete steel bridge that may have a deck life of 25-30 years and a structural life of maybe 50 years," said Steve Muck, President of Brayman Construction, the company building the bridge.

Next on the list is for workers to close the other spans and finished the segment and approach work. The bridge is scheduled to open to traffic in the fall of 2010.