WINSTON-SALEM – Business 40 will be closing in Winston-Salem in November, but may reopen in a shorter time than expected. The original contract was to have the project completed in 21 months, but an agreement between the N.C. Department of Transportation and Flatiron Construction, the lead contractor, could shorten the closure to 17 months, with opportunities to reopen the road even earlier.
NCDOT Resident Engineer Mezak Tucker said, “There are incentives to shorten the duration of construction to 14-15 months. The agreement will also speed up the opening of the bridges.”
The bridges which will be closed are on Church, Liberty, Cherry, Main, Green, Fourth and Marshall streets. Additional closures will be the bridges on Brookstown Avenue, the Strollway and the Green Street pedestrian bridge.
The incentives mean the road could reopen by January 2020.
“Our lead contractor has agreed to bring in more contractors to work to finish the job faster,” said NCDOT Division Engineer Pat Ivey. “This is just a continuation of the same process we have been working on with our design-build team.”
Ivey explained that two other components connected with the Business 40 closing were accelerated through negotiations with contractors.
The lane closures on Business 40 for the Peter’s Creek Parkway bridge construction was reduced from 45 days to 16. The second phase of that project is hopefully being reduced from 60 to 20 days.
NCDOT officials are urging drivers who normally use Business 40 to explore the area to find two new alternative routes to get to their destination. Detour signs will be posted, but having a back-up plan would be a good idea.
Drivers who normally use Business 40 to access downtown Winston-Salem will find that they need to use other routes to get to Broad, Cherry, Marshall, Liberty and Main streets.
Eastbound traffic on Business 40 will have the option to take Knollwood Street, Stratford Road, Cloverdale Avenue or Peter’s Creek Parkway to access downtown.
Westbound traffic will be able to choose from Old Greensboro Road, Fifth Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard or U.S. 52. No traffic will be able to go past the U.S. 52 exit.
Westbound traffic to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center will be able to exit at Cloverdale Avenue.
For more information, visit Business40NC.com, follow NCDOT on Twitter using the hashtag #Biz40NC, or call (336) 747-7800.