Last night Williams Brothers Construction closed all main lanes of northbound U.S. 281 at Nakoma Drive, pushing traffic onto the frontage road. This allowed bridge crews to do bridge work on the future south-to-north turnaround, which crews set beams to form over the weekend.
Expect to see the same closure tonight (Wednesday) from 9 o'clock until tomorrow morning at 5. Thursday and Friday nights Williams Brothers will close the southbound lanes in a similar manner.
These closures had initially been planned as "alternating" closures, meaning one or two lanes would close at a time. That changed to full closures when project managers discussed a potential for speedier, less expensive work. That's what we're implementing now. Williams Brothers provided the contractually obligated 48 hours notice for the lane closure, but they missed the window to have the closure posted in Friday's report.
While weather can impact the work requiring these closures, don't expect to see these closures pushed back. The work can be done even in the rain. Again, here's the closure info:
- Tuesday night and Wednesday night, 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. nightly. Northbound main lanes of U.S. 281 at Nakoma. All lanes will close for overhead bridge work. Traffic will exit Nakoma and re-enter after passing through the intersection.
- Thursday night and Friday night, 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. nightly. Southbound main lanes of U.S. 281 at Nakoma. All lanes will close for overhead bridge work. Traffic will exit Nakoma and re-enter after passing through the intersection.
As a reminder, the westbound exit ramp to DeZavala Road will close this weekend while crews resurface the road. This closure is extremely dependent on the weather and could be pushed back for the second straight week. If so, it will be rescheduled for May 29-June1.
Webber Construction will close the ramp - and the main lanes leading up to the ramp, leaving just three lanes open on the westbound side - around 9 p.m. Friday. Everything will be reopened by Monday morning's 5 o'clock commute. The work may not require all that allotted time, though, and we hope to be finished much earlier than Monday morning.
Those traveling west and headed to DeZavala have to main options. First, they can exit UTSA Boulevard and turn around, approaching DeZavala on the eastbound side. Otherwise they can exit Huebner Road and pass through the intersection at Huebner to continue along the westbound frontage road.
Again, all this is incredibly weather-dependent; we can't lay asphalt on wet ground. If making this happen is possible, though, we expect to move forward with the plan.
Fred-Med
Portable changeable message boards (those orange trailers with digital messages on them) have announced for a week the weekend closure of the intersection. This means Fredericksburg Road will be closed to all traffic at Medical Drive, and turning traffic on Medical will be closed at Fredericksburg Road. Through traffic on Medical Drive will be able to continue along their way, using a portion of the new underpass being constructed.
Fredericksburg Road traffic will use Wurzbach, Ewing Halsell and Louis Pasteur to get around the intersection. Traffic on Medical Drive will turn onto Ewing Halsell to reach Fredericksburg Road.
With the intersection closed Texas Sterling Construction will resurface the intersection, lay down new pavement markings and work on the traffic signals. This work could take every bit of the scheduled time over the weekend, but will result in a cleaner-running intersection than drivers have known over recent months.
Again, if wet weather hits through the weekend this work will be pushed back to May 29-June 1.