Friday, April 28

Overhead bridge work means full closures

Overhead bridgework pretty much always requires a full closure of some roadways. We have a quick barrage of such work across the San Antonio region and figured you'd like to know what's coming. The list is chronological.

May 8: I-35 at New Braunfels Ave
This one will be an overnight-only closure going the night of Monday, May 8 (with main lanes reopening in time for the Tuesday morning commute). All main lanes will close while crews place bridge support beams for the reconstruction and expansion of the New Braunfels Avenue bridge. Traffic will exit New Braunfels Avenue, continue through the intersection and re-enter the road.
We'll also have the bridge over I-35 itself closed for this work - all traffic crossing I-35 in the Government Hill-Fort Sam Houston area will use Walters or Pine to get across.
This is the second of several such closures we're doing on this project. Expect another coming up in the next few weeks for crews to set bridge deck panels and pour the new bridge deck. In a few months we'll be set to go through the same process - demo, bridge beams, deck panels, concrete, etc. - on the other half of the bridge.

May 15 (tentative): Marbach at Loop 1604
We have a tentative date set bridge support beams over Marbach as part of our Loop 1604 expansion project. Details for the traffic control will come as those details become available. We're planning to have a pre-work meeting in the next week or so, and we'll be sure to post details from that meeting once we've had it. Frankly, we just want folks to be aware of this right now.
The work itself, by the way, should not take long - we only have seven beams to set. That may not mean much to most of y'all ... it means we're expecting the closure to be an overnight closure only and should be done within 8 hours if things go well.

May 19-21: Walzem at I-35
This one includes a lingering closure that'll continue through August. We're closing Walzem completely for the weekend, Friday night into Sunday morning, to demo some old bridge structure so we can add the extra width to the main lanes. Traffic will turn onto the frontage road and turn around at the next intersection to reach its destination.
The turnarounds will remain closed through the summer to do bridge work - including construct the extensions to the abutments that will hold up the bridge beams in the future.
As with any area we're building a bridge, expect to see additional closures later when we're ready to set beams (near August), panels and pour concrete.