Traveling from downtown Gainesville to midtown on foot is about to get a lot easier and safer.

The Gainesville pedestrian bridge is weeks from completion, according to project manager Barclay Fouts, who gave a time range of middle to late August.

The only tasks left involve installing the stainless steel fencing.

“That’s really the last piece of the puzzle,” Fouts said.

Fouts said it will be very easy to see the bridge’s progress over the next few weeks.

The bridge spans Jesse Jewell Parkway near the Georgia Mountains Center and is one of several steps the city is taking to improve and revitalize the midtown area.

“The goal is to connect midtown and downtown and vice versa,” Gainesville Communications and Tourism Director Catiel Felts said.

Felts said events in downtown could more easily expand into the midtown area once people can safely cross the busy parkway. She said she’s already been contacted by several running groups that would like to incorporate the bridge and Midtown Greenway trail into their races.

“We’re just excited people want to use it and will be using it,” Felts said.

She said the city will likely plan some sort of celebration once the completion date is officially set.

The finished product will come nearly one year after it was originally expected to be finished in September 2011. Some delays were caused by weather and other items, such as landscaping that had to be approved by the Georgia Department of Transportation before it could be installed.

More recently, new bridge regulations were issued by the DOT after decorative fencing fell from a bridge in Atlanta.

“That kind of put things on hold for a while. We had to go back and regroup, but I don’t see anything at this point that would extend it any longer,” Fouts said.

While crews were waiting for the fencing, Fouts said they were able to add plants for the landscaping and finish a lot of the details.

“We’re just wrapping up the fencing, and that’s the last piece of the project and then it’ll be coming to a close,” Fouts said.