Monday, October 20

Weekend wrap; how the weekend's closures fared

Over the weekend we had several major corridors with huge closures, causing traffic delays in every segment of San Antonio north of U.S. 90. Here's a look at how things went:

I-10 at Ralph Fair Road

This closure mimicked what was done a few weeks ago, when Sundt Construction set nine of the longest beams in the state of Texas over the main lanes of I-10 at Ralph Fair Road on the city's far northwest side. This time, Sundt was pouring concrete.

Their plan was to have lanes reopened by 9 p.m. Saturday, and they beat that target by a few hours. By 5:45 p.m. traffic was flowing as normal on I-10 in both directions. That was done in part because of Sundt's work and preparation in the early hours of the closure, which started around 2 a.m. Saturday.

This was the second of about seven different times I-10 will close at this location, so expect another similar closure again in a few weeks. No exact timeline is sure yet, but we do have some internal targets. When we get closure to the next closure, we'll let everyone know.

DeZavala Road at I-10

The biggest hiccup on this came when Webber Construction crews started shutting lanes down at 8:20 p.m. Friday, rather than wait until the advertised 9 p.m. start time. The advertising was conflicting: in our outreach, we talked about 8:30 p.m., and the digital message boards read 9 p.m. We have corrected this for future closures.

Crews were able to chip away at the I-10 bridge over DeZavala, though trucks weren't able to haul off the debris until Sunday morning. Still, DeZavala Road was reopened in time for the Monday morning commute, which was the goal all along.

U.S. 281 at Wurzbach

A number of closures happened Saturday along the U.S. 281 corridor betweeen Nakoma Drive and Bitters Road, and work was done without a hitch. Most of the work is associated with Williams Brothers' Construction of Wurzbach Parkway overpass being built, which is scheduled to open by mid-215.

With this area, no news is good news. And things were extraordinarily quiet on the project this weekend, meaning things went well.

Northbound I-35 near SAMMC

Another case of no-news-is-good-news. Crews were able to have the highway reopened by Sunday afternoon, which met the goal set by Lane Construction. Bridge crews were able to pour concrete without any incident, and the road was only closed for a few brief hours.

Coming up
We have more major closures this weekend, including a full closure of all main lanes of U.S. Highway 281 Friday night. That closure will include the southbbound frontage road, meaning all southbound traffic will be diverted to West Avenue to get around the closure.

The major closure at the intersection of Fredericksburg Road and Medical Drive has been postponed as engineers examine bridge support structures and the plan to slide the Fredericksburg Road bridge deck into place. At this point, the earliest the closure would begin is November 7-8.