LOUISVILLE — While 2015 is expected to be the busiest year for Ohio River Bridges Project construction, most major traffic changes will involve opening new infrastructure.
And the biggest traffic adjustment of the year will be in Southern Indiana, when Interstate 65 northbound lanes open and traffic shifts from southbound lanes in July, said Walsh Construction project manager Max Rowland.
Mindy Peterson, spokeswoman for the Ohio River Bridges Project, said the road will remain two lanes in each direction and will just shift over to the new pavement.
“It actually should be easier for drivers because where [Interstate] 65 south has been a split configuration, there [will be] no split,” Peterson said. “That goes away this summer when we make the change.”
Project managers along with Peterson gave drivers a look ahead at the 2015 schedule at a news conference in the Lincoln Lot at Waterfront Park on Wednesday.
Their message was that construction will be “accelerating” forward to meet a new goal of completing the downtown crossing by January 2016.
“We’re not stepping off the gas,” Andy Barber, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet project manager, said.
Rowland said recent rain and melting snow, which caused the Ohio River to rise, halted work the last week or so.
“By the end of this week, it should be down,” Rowland said. “We’re planning on having our crews going back to work next Monday. We’ve got our fingers crossed that it will be down next Monday.”
He said there may be some cleanup involved with the lowering waterlines.
“We’re still on schedule,” he said. “The one good thing is, we’ve still got nine and half months, which is a long time.”
The downtown crossing will gradually come together throughout the year. Barber said the fifth tower, closest to Indiana, will be topped out soon and 88 cables will be installed in the coming seasons.
As the summer progresses, Rowland said drivers will see structural steel erected and deck panels installed.
Toward the end of the year, concrete will be poured on top of the deck panels.
“We’ll see road, I’m going to say fall,” Rowland said.
He said that it won’t be just downtown crossing work that will be busy.
“We’ll be accelerating on all three sections of the project,” Rowland said, naming work in Kentucky and Indiana as the other two construction sections.
That will involve construction and completion of approaches and ramps. In the spring, I-65 north access to Interstate 64 east and Interstate 71 north will open.
“We’ll actually be putting traffic over onto the new highway and the new pavements that we’ve constructed last fall and through the winter,” Rowland said.
The new flyover bridge in Indiana from U.S. 31 North going to I-65 north will open.
“All in all, we need to work coordinated to make everything happen,” he said.
Construction and traffic updates can be found online at kyinbridges.com.