281 bridge to open next month; tighter lanes in February

November 29, 2012, 5:30 pm by Adam Troxtell

The new US 281 bridge will open to traffic mid-December, and it will have to fit all four lanes in tighter quarters early next year as crews begin rebuilding the old bridge.

While progress has slowed slightly as contractor Archer-Western searches for a new guardrail supplier after the one they had went bankrupt, the new bridge is expected to open to two lanes of northbound traffic on or around Dec. 21. Southbound traffic will be moved to the far right lanes of the old bridge, leaving space in the center for crews to add some finishing touches before moving onto the next phase of the project.

Jason Cavness, engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) who is supervising the project, said crews would use this time to touch up some paving on each end of the bridge and a few more miscellaneous projects.

"Initially, there will be two lanes on the new bridge and two lanes on the old bridge, and they’ll be doing work in the middle,” Todd Estes, Marble Falls city engineer who coordinates with Archer-Western and TxDOT, said. "They’ll do that until sometime in February.”

Reader Comments

Tighter lanes? Anything larger than a Smart Car is currently spilling over as it is. Should be interesting to watch the stone haulers deal with the "tighter lanes" without wiping out commuter traffic.
December 02, 2012, 10:08am by Nick Scott