i-95 North in SC Lake Marion Bridge Construction Starting

[SCTigerCock 171]

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/sep/12/i-95-bridge-repairs-to-slow-traffic/

More than 10,000 vehicles traveling Interstate 95 north daily will be slowed starting today because of repairs to the mile-long Lake Marion bridge.

The work will last nearly two months.

The situation affects the tri-county area because trucks hauling the biggest loads on I-95 north are being re-routed onto Interstate 26 east to the Charleston area, where they will pick up U.S. 52 through Berkeley County and follow a designated detour back to I-95 on the other side of the Lake Marion bridge.

Trucks hauling loads wider than 8.5 feet must take the detour. Typically, that means movers of heavy equipment, tractor-trailers hauling mobile homes and the like. State-issued permits for those kinds of loads do not include destinations, so officials have no way of knowing how many trucks will take the detour, said DOT spokesman Pete Poore.

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I-95 north motorists are advised to expect congestion, heavy at times, in the vicinity of the work near the Orangeburg-Clarendon county line especially during peak travel times on weekends. The work begins at mile marker 98, the Santee exit, where two lanes of northbound I-95 will be reduced to one lane until Nov. 16.

"It's going to be a bottleneck or a funnel. It's going to be problematic. Is it going to go without a hitch? Probably not," said Rick Todd, president and CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association.

Todd said he has put the word out to the association's 700 member companies about the plan to close down one lane of the northbound two-lane bridge. He also has spread the news nationally.

"There are going to be a lot of people surprised by it," he said.

Motorists and truckers have no reasonable alternative for a detour around the work, he said.

The DOT suggests motorists take I-26 west to Columbia, Interstate 77 north to Interstate 20 east, then to I-95 at Florence.

"Due to the limited access across Lake Marion, there are no convenient routes," DOT said.

Carolina Bridge Company of Orangeburg will repair concrete on the bridge deck. During the work, which will happen 24 hours daily, two miles of I-95 north will become one lane and the speed will be reduced to 45 mph.

A routine inspection revealed concrete deteriorating on the bridge deck. The bridge is safe for travel, but the condition warrants repairs before it worsens, the DOT said.

In 2009, DOT performed emergency repairs to the I-95 north Lake Marion bridge, which was built in the 1960s. Engineers closed one lane of the bridge near mile marker 100 because they found superficial cracks.

The DOT maintains and inspects a total of 8,360 bridges. Of those, 937 are "structurally deficient," meaning the bridges do not meet certain federal standards.

"However, this does not imply that the bridge is unsafe, or needs to have the load restricted," the DOT said.

The state has 765 bridges classified as "functionally obsolete" because they fall short of applicable federal standards. One example is an older bridge that has lanes narrower than today's standards.

There are 1,702 "substandard" bridges in South Carolina, meaning they fall into both categories. DOT engineers have restricted the weight on 419 bridges statewide and closed 12 bridges.

Edited, to include full article and updated link

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Just checking in to see if anyone has been through here lately?

[BouncingTiggers 98]

More than 10,000 cars a day will be slowed :rofl2:

Monique 93 up here gets 200,000 cars a day crossing between MA & NH all while dropping to two lanes. I don't think we need to worry to much about it.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Well having done a test run up 93 today in pretty moderate New England fall traffic, THAT certainly puts things into perspective!

I'm not worried so much about the volume as the width of the lane. Not looking forward to greasing up the sides of the TT and holding my breath for the duration.