WINSTON-SALEM – As part of the Business 40 Improvement Project, one more bridge will open while another will close.
Weather permitting, the Church Street bridge will open to traffic on Friday, May 24. On Tuesday, May 28, at 5 a.m., the last remaining bridge, the Marshall Street bridge, will close to be demolished.
The Marshall Street bridge will be closed a month ahead of schedule and is scheduled to reopen by mid-January 2020.
Motorists and pedestrians will be able to use the Main, Broad, and Church Street bridges to navigate around the Marshall Street closure.
Also, the new Liberty Street bridge is expected to open in mid-to-late June and will offer another option.
To date, new bridges have been opened at Fourth Street, Peters Creek Parkway, Broad Street and Main Street.
“The earlier starting date for Marshall Street construction is a huge change from the original schedule,” said NCDOT Resident Engineer Mezak Tucker. “Closing the bridge at the beginning of the prime construction season can help move up the overall completion date.”
“The project is moving from having the bridge closures on the east side of the project to having the bridge closures in the middle of the project,” added Tucker. “We are excited that our contractor is already in a position do to this. Any time we can gain now will have a great benefit to the reopening of Marshall Street and ultimately Business 40. While it may be inconvenient for 30 days to have both Liberty Street and Marshall Street closed at the same time, the benefits to the overall project completion are huge.”
The original contract called for the Business 40 Improvement Project to be completed by August 2020. However, agreements between NCDOT and Flatiron
Constructors/Blythe Development, the prime construction contractor, reduced the construction timeline from 21 to 17 months, with opportunities to reduce the timeline even further.
For more information, visit Business40nc.com or Winston-Salem Business 40 Improvements on Facebook.