Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Team coverageIf you plan on taking I-80 this weekend, you may want to think again. UDOT has reached a midway milestone with the I-80 reconstruction project, and starting tomorrow morning, the lanes will shift. That means closures.
As long the weather cooperates and everything goes as scheduled, closures will be kept to a minimum, and starting Monday, cars will be able to drive down the newly-paved lanes of I-80.
It's been more than a year since motorists could drive down the northernmost lanes of I-80, but with a few road closures and a lot of asphalt, UDOT plans to transition the lanes by Sunday.
Starting Saturday at 7 a.m., I-80 from State Street to 1300 East, will be reduced to two lanes in each direction. Then on Saturday, all lanes will close from 11 p.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday. This is when the traffic will be moved from the old lanes to the new ones.
As they are making that shift, there are some ramp closures to be aware of. The State Street westbound off-ramp will stay closed through late fall. The east and westbound on-ramps at 700 East will also remain closed.
New this weekend, the westbound on-ramp at 1300 East will re-open Sunday and the northbound will close.
John Montoya, Innovate 80 project manager, said, "We're just really excited to be able to be at this point, to get people on the new pavement, onto some of the new bridges and really be making good progress at this point."
UDOT will remove the bridges at Highland Drive and 900 East. To do these demolition projects, UDOT will need to shut down a few more surface streets starting Monday, but they say they will have those streets re-opened a week later.
UDOT says as it makes all these transitions, safety will be a priority. Right now there is about a foot drop from the new pavement to the older surface near 700 East, but this weekend a temporary ramp will be built.
"We'll be working all weekend to make sure the safety devices are all in place, that the striping is done appropriately and that things are done as they should be," Montoya said.
By December this year, UDOT says it will have three lanes of traffic open in each direction, and by December 2009, all five lanes and ramps will be up and running.
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
E-mail: spark@ksl.com
