Road Project Will Clog I-240 For Months
Portions of I-240 will be snarled with traffic for about a year and a half as road crews replace four bridges that cross it, but officials said the situation is better than other options.
State officials announced MemFix 4 here on Thursday. It’s a $54.1 million plan that will replace two bridges on Poplar, one on Park, and another used by Norfolk Southern Railroad. Those bridges, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), were built in 1968 and “have structural deterioration and deficiencies that need to be addressed.”
“We are using an innovative process to accelerate the much needed replacement of these bridges while minimizing the inconvenience to motorists,” TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said. “It will allow these bridges to be completed in 9 to12 weekends instead of 2 to 3 years.”
That process is called Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC). It “requires short-term, total road closures to allow crews the space to do their jobs and the freedom to work around the clock. The closures will also allow construction to be finished in months instead of years.”
So, some portions of I-240 will be completely shut down on certain weekends beginning in the the summer of 2018. However, lane closures will begin in January and will continue until the project is complete in June 2019.
For more information, visit the project’s website.
