CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The new Columbus Road Lift Bridge, its trusses and beams in stark relief, was moved by barge this morning to waiting towers on either side of the Cuyahoga River.

The operation got underway at 6:15 a.m. as churning tugboats maneuvered the barge for the half-mile trip downriver. Though they traveled at just two knots, the barge and its lofty load had arrived at the Columbus Road crossing by 7:15 a.m.

"It brought tears to my eyes when it was floating," said Peter Kochera, a retired carpenter and resident of Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood. "It was a massive undertaking."

The former Columbus Road bridge, 73 years old and in poor condition, was torn out last year and replaced by the updated span shipped into place today. It was built by American Bridge Co. of Coraopolis, Pa., in a $32 million project managed by the Cuyahoga County Public Works Department.

The bridge linking Ohio City with the Flats and downtown Cleveland was closed in May 2013, an inconvenience for industries that send trucks up and down Columbus Road, and for workers and restaurants in the Flats. The bridge handles about 6,300 vehicles a day, including 250 trucks.

There's a lot yet to be done to connect the span to the towers – hooking up cable, electrical and fiber optic systems – so the bridge won't reopen until mid-October. The river near the bridge site is scheduled to reopen by 6 a.m. Friday. The U.S. Coast Guard granted a four-day navigation channel closure to complete the work.

The new span was loaded onto the barge Monday. It was supported by four stout steel pillars positioned over a deck set on special rubberized tires called crawlers – the same kind of equipment used to transport space shuttles to launch pads.

The bridge was supposed to be floated into place Monday afternoon, but high winds and choppy water forced crews to delay the move.

The float-out drew about 50 spectators to Cleveland Metroparks' Rivergate Park on the east bank of the river, off Merwin Avenue.

At 93 feet above water at its tallest point, the barge with the dark green bridge poised above it seemed barely to clear a railroad bridge at a bend in the river. An American flag fluttered off the rear of the span as it paraded slowly by.

"You gotta be proud of it," said Cynthia Isago of Cleveland, whose husband is an electrician on the project.

She and other spouses of crew members showed up Monday and Tuesday with camp chairs and coolers.

'It's exciting. It's very stressful," said Cynthia Chang of Cleveland, whose husband is an ironworker. "If everybody's not on their game and watching out, every little aspect in there, then things can get messy."

Debi Johnson of Port Huron, Mich., married to one of the tugboat captains, said he had a lot of pressure on him and the project was nerve-wracking for her, too.

The barge came to a stop as it neared the lift towers. A horn blared several times to signal that crews were adjusting the crawlers to make the road surface of the span and the towers exactly synced. Workers began to "walk in" the nearly 2 million pound truss structure.

The bridge has counterweight boxes in its towers that are filled with concrete and cast iron blocks. They equal the weight of the span and raise and lower the bridge by cables.

"Once they get it in place the electrical guys are going to be working around the clock," said Ray Bencivengo, a engineer on the design team for the project, TranSystems.

The span is the fifth at the site of what historians say was Cleveland's first permanent bridge over the Cuyahoga River. The first went up in 1836, with a draw section permitting vessels to pass, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.