Rejoice! Days ahead of schedule, drivers seen using both sides of Sunshine Bridge
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DONALDSONVILLE – It appeared to reopen with a lot less noise than it closed – for the first time in more than a year, traffic moved across the Sunshine Bridge using all four lanes this week.
Drivers were given two lanes in either direction to cross the bridge which has been plagued with lane closures and heavy delays – and a lengthy complete closure – since last October when a barge hit the bridge. Scheduled maintenance work kept one side of the bridge closed after emergency repairs from the collision were made.
DOTD did not publicly announce the bridge lanes were totally open, though traffic cameras Tuesday showed four open lanes – two in either direction.
Drivers in Iberville, Ascension and St. James can rejoice.
The scheduled maintenance work was to replace joints of the approach spans, restoring the approach girder splices, and repairing the top chord safety handrails.
For months, there have been varying lane closures or traffic has been filtered to just one lane in each direction as work continued. Breakdowns or wrecks snarled traffic over the river on occasion.
DOTD told WBRZ Tuesday, striping work was ongoing on the bridge lanes. The state highway department previously pinpointed a November re-opening of all lanes. Traffic taking to all lanes Tuesday is more than a week ahead of schedule.
Click HERE to get real-time traffic information and watch traffic updates on the WBRZ morning news program 2une-In from 5 – nine and weekday evenings starting with WBRZ News 2 at 4 p.m.
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