A traffic nightmare that resulted from bridge closures last weekend has prompted the Virginia Dept. of Transportation to suspend planned closures at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and James River Bridge scheduled for this upcoming weekend.
The decision was as a result of a traffic nightmare that occurred last weekend when eastbound lanes of the HRBT and southbound lanes of JRB were closed at the same time, Charlie Kilpatrick, VDOT’s chief deputy commissioner of highways said in a teleconference covered by the Newport News Virginia Daily Press.
The traffic jams experienced Saturday were “completely unacceptable,” Kilpatrick said, explaining that the road work would be halted while a better plan is developed.
The simultaneous lane closures involved repaving and bridge grid deck replacement at the HRBT and JRB, respectively. Huge traffic jams were reported at the Interstate 664 Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry, surface streets in Newport News and in Suffolk at the Godwin Bridge, on Route 17, where the city was conducting its own paving operation that closed one lane of the bridge with two opposing lanes.
