TDOT silent with updates on planned bridge closure

TDOT silent with updates on planned bridge closure

Truck traffic concerns remain largely unaddressed of the proposed project concerns truckers, commuters, hotel owners, restaurateurs and emergency

news@theeveningtimes.com responders, the West Memphis MPO Policy Committee heard there is already one breakdown occurring — a communication To twist the Simon and Garfunkel lyrics, the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s Interstate 55/Crump Boulevard roundabout project remains a troubled bridge over water.

While breakdowns, accidents and icy weather on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge during construction breakdown No, news is not good news, according to West Memphis MPO Study Director Eddie Brawley. Not a word has been heard from TDOT since the last quarterly meeting, when the committee told TDOT “no”

and “no” to two alternative options for traffic on I-55 during construction.

The TDOT plan calls for two continuous banked and sweeping lanes for Interstate 55, with a roundabout at Crump and Riverside Drive. One option would close the bridge and a portion of I-55 for nine months. The other would allow for one-lane-eachway light vehicle traffic over six years.

“As far as I know, they are still studying the same two alternatives we voted to reject,” said Brawley. “They haven’t said when they’d make a decision.”

The communication snafu between Tennessee and Arkansas became exemplified by communication over the weigh stations.

One constant remains under either construction plan, all the trucks are to be diverted to Interstate 40. All truck traffic will be diverted to Interstate 40 for the river crossing and detour down Midtown I-240. The MPO discussed two challenges.

Heavy loads are routinely diverted to I-55. The second challenge arose when the committee wondered how all the trucks could be weighed.

I-55 currently carries more truck traffic. Brawley confirmed the bottleneck in communication between TDOT and AHTD and predicted bottlenecks for the trucks moving through the scales too. Brawley turned to the expert Ron Burks Chief of the Arkansas Highway Police. His department enforces trucking in the state and operates the weigh stations.

“One of their controls is that they’ll add scales to the weigh station, are you aware of that?” asked Brawley.

“That is news to me” replied Burks.

“That is what I figured,” said Brawley.

“We already have dual lanes in our weigh station,” noted Burks.

“Adding scales still isn’t going to help,” said Brawley. “There are still times it is going to break down there because when they go back on the Interstate, it is still one lane. You can add all the scales you want but they still have to merge to get out. It will more than double the truck traffic.”

“We are adding some prepaid pass or drive-way weigh-in motion systems,” said Burks. “But I don’t know what that has to do with closing the 55 bridge.” Heavy load routing

changes were also discussed in the absence of any TDOT representatives. “We have some overweight

loads that we actually have to send over I-55,” said Burks. “If we have loads that we won’t take across 40 they are going to have to travel and go down to Louisiana or up to Missouri to get across the river.”

“They act like they’ve talked to you about this,” said Brawley. “It’s crazy.

To me this just proves again that they haven’t done their homework over here to start with.”

By John Rech