An excavator mechanically rolled forward Wednesday morning on a still-standing portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, clutching a 6-foot-by-20-foot segment of roadway. It released the sawed-off pavement from its jowls and turned around, ready for more.

Sixteen months after the bridge’s main span was knocked down by a massive container ship, killing six construction workers, demolition of the remaining structures has begun. Crews aren’t using explosives but are removing remnants bit by bit.

A contingent of government officials, including Gov. Wes Moore and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, donned hard hats and reflective vests to tour the demolition site Wednesday from the Fort Armistead side.

Near that ramp’s edge, overlooking the Patapsco River and the Port of Baltimore, workers using high-powered saws cut up pavement, which was then lugged away by excavators.

Moore commended officials who worked on permitting for the rebuild and kept “us on track to deliver something that’s going to be powerful.”

That precise track, however, is unclear.

Immediately after the deadly collision and collapse in March 2024, the state pegged fall 2028 as the bridge’s rebuild completion date. Secretary of Transportation Paul Wiedefeld, who will soon leave his post, did not commit to that timeline Wednesday.

However, he said that this fall the state will update the rebuild’s projected timeline and budget.

Officials estimated last year that the bridge would cost $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion, which will be fully federally funded. Despite uncertainty from cuts by President Donald Trump, Van Hollen said that money is secure.

“Those funds are set in stone,” he said Wednesday, flanked by officials including U.S. Reps. Johnny Olszewski Jr. and Sarah Elfreth, and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott.

Maryland told prospective builders in a request for proposals last summer that it expected the new bridge to be completed no later than Oct. 15, 2028.

The initial schedule and budget were developed 13 days after the collapse, Wiedefeld said Wednesday, in an effort to land needed federal funds.

Officials have cautioned that those figures were essentially rough estimates, based upon other bridges.

Typically when a bridge is built, engineers spend years planning. In this case, engineers have set up shop in an Anne Arundel County office park to draw up plans; those designs are about 50% complete, the Maryland Transportation Authority said Wednesday. Once the bridge is 70% designed, the state will establish an updated timeline and budget.

The new bridge will be much taller than the fallen one, have a wider main span (1,665 feet) and be cable-stayed, meaning it will have two towers attached to a web of cables to support the roadway.

The state needs to establish a firm cost with the hired builder, Kiewit, and Wiedefeld said he didn’t want to negotiate “in the press.”

“It’s a disadvantage to the state to put that out there right now,” he said.

Demolition was slated to begin last year but was delayed until this summer. It will be a nine-month process.

That doesn’t mean construction has to wait, though. The building of materials drives the schedule, Wiedefeld said, not demolition.

Workers in Texas are manufacturing custom piles — cylinders that are 8 feet in diameter and an inch or 2 thick — which will be barged to Baltimore and lodged into the seabed, forming the bridge’s foundation.

“They have to be rolled into that shape. They’re not an off-the-shelf element,” said Brian Wolfe, the Maryland Transportation Authority’s director of project development.

Moore said construction is scheduled to start “later on this year.”

The new bridge was expected to be on almost the precise footprint of the old span, but it will be located about 260 feet east. Various agencies (such as the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) will need to approve that modification.

As engineers analyzed the river bottom beneath the old bridge in search of a hard layer to install foundations, they found 60 vertical feet that were “almost like soup,” Wolfe said.

They also discovered debris — potentially from the bridge collapse — on the river bottom. Slightly shifting the new bridge, officials said, made the most sense.