Fred-Med: major traffic switch coming

Those headed to Bluff Creek Towers will find their lower parking lot area finished by Saturday, including having the driveway at full width at the top of the hill. Traffic into the driveway will follow a path similar to the original alignment of the driveway for the time being. Crews are moving along to the upper portion of the parking lot and will be pressing to have the road at the bottom of the hill finished in order to move the Bluff Creek driveway to its final layout later this month.

Folks at Bluff Creek will notice changes - advancements - in work surrounding the driveway and parking lot for that property.

So much for the narrow view ... here's what's going on with the rest of the project for the masses:

Beginning next weekend (May 9-10) crews will begin milling and resurfacing the road on Medical Drive near Ewing Halsell. That will be almost the last task to finish before the first major traffic switch on the project....

Next weekend Texas Sterling Construction will have a series of closures to allow them to remove the center median on Medical Drive near Ewing Halsell. The contractor will also repave the roadway in this area.

Phase II

In about two weeks crews will switch traffic over onto the future westbound portion of Medical Drive, marking the end of Phase I and the start of Phase II.

While this will not impact daily traffic much beyond actually moving traffic lanes over; we will be keeping the single lane each way on the hill and two lanes each way west of Fredericksburg Road. The work will mean we need to close the driveways onto Medical Drive for the business complex that houses the UPS Store and others; we will maintain their acces on Fredericksburg Road for these businesses.

Traffic will be pushed far to the left of this view when Phase II begins in two weeks.

This phase will take us through the summer for work, and we will open up traffic into the next configuration this fall. That configuration will essentially put traffic on both eastbound and westbound approaches from Medical Drive to Fredericksburg Road, leaving the 'main lanes' of Medical vacant for work.

Crews are working quickly to have the area to the right ready to carry traffic by mid-May.

During Phase II crews will focus on constructing the future eastbound side of Medical Drive, which will look a lot like what things on the westbound side looks like. This will mean heavy excavation, including drilling and milling work. This will include night work. Before that heavy excavation can happen, utility crews will adjust water lines, gas lines, storm drain and sewer. Service interrumptions will be brief and will be coordinated through SAWS and property owners.

Fred Road bridge

Crews continue building the support structures for the Fredericksburg Road bridge. Those structures are under the large steel plates spanning the intersection of Fred and Med. Bridge builders will soon begin building a "slide pad" to accommodate a new bridge building technique planned for this intersection. We'll post more on this technique as we get closer to the bridge-building phases of work.

This trench is active all the way through Fredericksburg Road, covered with steel plates. Crews are working in the trench to build bridge support structures for the underpass that's being built at this intersection.

For a 360-degree view of the area and work, click here.