The Birmingham Bridge reopened at 6 a.m. yesterday as scheduled -- one lane in each direction on the southbound side -- after workers on Sunday repositioned part of it onto a temporary steel pier.

The northbound side will remain closed until engineers design and manufacture a new bearing system for it. Frozen rocker bearings are believed to have caused the southbound span to dislodge Feb. 8 and drop 8 inches onto Pier No. 10, a land pier between Second Avenue and the Monongahela River.

"Everything went as planned yesterday and today," Pennsylvania Department of Transportation District 11 spokesman Jim Struzzi said. "Our focus from the start has been to reopen the bridge."

Workers used hydraulic jacks to lift the 2.1-million-pound span and place it onto a temporary steel pier built next to the existing 50-foot-tall concrete pier. A total of 19 spans make up the Birmingham Bridge.

About 6,000 vehicles a day use the six-lane bridge between Carson Street on the South Side and Forbes and Fifth avenues in Oakland. For now, large trucks are banned under the temporary traffic setup because of a tight turning radius at East Carson Street.

After the rocker bearings are replaced on the northbound side, PennDOT will make permanent repairs on the southbound side.

Now that the dislodged span has been repositioned and no longer sits on Pier No. 10, engineers will evaluate whether it can be retrofitted or whether it must be replaced.

Once the span was removed and the pressure taken off, the pier moved about a half-inch back toward its original position.

"That's a good sign," Mr. Struzzi said.