Westbound I-244 bridge to open before Christmas
BY JARREL WADE World Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The westbound Interstate 244 bridge over the Arkansas River is planned to open before Christmas and possibly this week, an Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokesman said Tuesday.
Mark Zishka, an ODOT Tulsa-area construction engineer, said crews are hoping to get the new multimodal bridge open to traffic this week, although the full project is not scheduled to be finished for several months.
"This week possibly. We're seriously trying to finish by the holidays," Zishka said.
Once completed, the multimodal bridge will carry three lanes of vehicular traffic.
Below the lanes, the bridge will support two rail lines and a pedestrian bridge.
Zishka said traffic will be allowed onto the bridge and traffic will run normally for several months on separate bridges, aside from lane closures as crews finish work on the bridge.
In March, the eastbound bridge is scheduled to go out for bids to be replaced, Zishka said.
Construction on that bridge is planned to start several months later, and traffic will be diverted onto the new westbound bridge, he said.
The eastbound bridge will not be multimodal except for plans currently being worked on to either have a pedestrian walkway similar to the westbound bridge or possibly to have a viewing station, Zishka said.
Check back with tulsaworld.com for more information about when traffic begins to flow onto the new bridge.
