The latest on the I-10 Huebner project

Last weekend bridge crews poured concrete to form most of the left lanes on the east-bound overpass bridge over Fredericksburg Road, meaning we're quickly approaching the completion of that major milestone.

What does that mean?

First of all, it means we're hoping to be about a week or a week-and-a-half ahead of schedule on getting the main lanes of I-10 freed up again. That will eliminate the pinch point that causes significant morning delays between Huebner and Loop 1604.

Look for these changes before the first week of school - and perhaps even as early as late next week.

So ... that leaves the next question: What's next?

Once our work on the Fredericksburg Road overpass bridge is done, the contractor will begin moving into the area of DeZavala Road. We need to lift those bridge decks, which will mean we have to make the actual bridges longer (it has something to do with the geometry and the math behind structure stability ... the whole conversation made me wish I'd taken more math classes). We'll do one side of the bridge at a time, at six months apiece.

So, here's what it will mean for you who drive this stretch daily:

• The turnarounds at DeZavala will be closed - in both directions - for about a year
• The main lanes will be shifted over and squeezed to a little less than 11 feet wide (normal is 12 or 13 feet)
• Traffic flow will be slow through DeZavala, in both directions, but should free up afterward

Remember we'll still be working on the turnaround bridge at UTSA Boulevard through all this. In fact, we're making some great headway there - we've got most of our retaining wall panels on the east-bound side in place and we're chugging along at the retaining wall on the west-bound side - and we hope to begin building the actual structure of the turnaround at UTSA Boulevard this fall.

When this project started in January 2012, the project schedule was 30 months (two and a half years), meaning the projected completion was mid-2014. However, because of delays with a previous contractor and the financial woes associated with the same, we were looking at being delayed as much as a full 10 months.

I spoke with project managers earlier, wondering what our estimated completion date was. The answer: End of 2014. The delay could be several more months than that, but the contractor is committed to being done as soon as possible, and we're hoping to be out of the way again - and have traffic flowing more freely than ever! - by the end of next year.