June 2, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
Elk City travelers will be facing congested traffic for the next 45-60 days when traveling on South Main Street over Interstate 40 as ODOT construction crews do some maintenance work.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s Assistant Division Engineer for District 5 Taylor Henderson says his department has two projects slated for the area. One is a complete demolition of the Main Street bridge over the interstate (also called Highway 6) which is slated for 2018 and the current project that began Wednesday.
Henderson says his maintenance crews are, basically, rehabbing the roadway.
According to the latest traffic count, approximately 75-hundred vehicles travel that section of Main Street every day and the construction impacts a number of drivers as the divided road is diverted into one-lane traffic, each way.
Henderson says the roadway will remain open, but not so in 2018 when the bridge will be totally reconstructed, a project of about $6-million dollars.
Interstate 40 travelers just a couple miles west of the Highway 6 bridge are also familiar with the current construction of what’s called the Merritt Road bridge. Henderson says the Merritt Road bridge is being rehabilitated which shouldn’t take too long.
As for the work that began Wednesday, the rehabilitation should get rid of the bumps that travelers experience both north and south of the Highway 6 bridge over the Interstate.
The rehabilitation is slated to be finished the middle to latter part of July.
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