PORT ANGELES — The newly created span over the Elwha River west of Port Angeles was closed Thursday for up to three weeks to allow installation of improved guardrails.

Temporary wooden rails had been erected on the top level — the vehicle deck — of the 85-foot-tall, two-deck bridge on the Elwha River Road before it was opened in September.

“The bridge already has a guardrail for vehicles, but it is not very high,” said Ross Tyler, county engineer, Thursday.

“If you’re a bicyclist, it wouldn’t be very hard to go over if you were to crash.”

Those rails will be replaced with permanent steel railings that are 42 inches high.

“If all goes well, we hope we can get it open within two weeks, ” said Ross Tyler, Clallam County engineer, Thursday.

“Hopefully, it will be closed for this very short period, and then it can be reopened forever.”

The installation originally was planned in early February, but it was postponed to allow county officials to finalize a contract with Parsons RCI, which built the bridge, and to receive Federal Highway Administration approval of the steel rail.

The county had about $100,000 in prefabricated railing ready to be installed.

Most pedestrians cross the river canyon on the pedestrian path — part of the Olympic Discovery Trial — suspended by cables below car deck.

Some bicyclists, however, cross the scenic river valley on the upper deck, where the existing rail is thought to be too short for safe crossings on a bicycle.

“Once the new ones are installed, it will be very safe for both pedestrians and bicyclists,” Tyler said.

The $19.7 million, 589-foot span replaced the one-lane Warren-truss-type steel bridge that served the county from 1914 to 2007.

The bridge replacement project was kick-started by the catastrophic collapse of the Interstate 35W span in Minneapolis in 2007.

Clallam County closed the creaky one-lane Elwha River Bridge shortly after the Minnesota bridge collapse.

It was the only bridge closed in Washington state after the I-35W collapse.

Parsons RCI was awarded the contract to build the new bridge in July 2007.

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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.