BATON ROUGE - Starting Thursday night, drivers will need to plan their routes around alternating lane closures on I-10 and I-12 Westbound from Essen Lane to College Drive. 

The closures are necessary so crews can make more progress on the College Drive flyover project. According to project spokesman, Mark Lambert, the construction should be finished around mid-2024. 

"Nobody likes getting on the interstate and going through traffic, but we believe this project is going to make it easier and safer," Lambert said. 

Once the new flyover is ready and able to withstand the flow of daily traffic, drivers from I-10 west will be shifted onto the newly-built structure. The current I-10 overpass before the merge will be demolished and rebuilt higher and wider. 

After that, the two flyovers will be divided with one lane from I-10 west merging with one lane from I-12 west exiting directly at College Drive. 

Three lanes on I-12 Westbound are to be reconfigured to the south, so that they will run alongside the lanes of I-12 Eastbound, and underneath the flyover. 

"With this new alignment, I-12 Westbound is actually going to go under the I-10 overpass, hence the word 'flyover,'" Lambert said. 

The end result will eliminate the need for drivers to weave through multiple lanes of traffic to exit at College Drive. 

Lambert added, the flyover project was originally part of the major project to widen I-10 between the I-10/I-110 interchange and Acadian Thruway. Due to the complex nature of the College Flyover, the projects were separated. 

You can find the full schedule of nightly lane closures here.