Road closings coming to I-275, Skyway

Erecting new signs will close southbound I-275, while Skyway work will shut northbound lanes.

By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 12, 2002

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ST. PETERSBURG -- Driving in this area will take a few more quirky, irritating turns with the complete closure of a stretch of Interstate 275 through Pinellas County and an emergency lane closure on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

However, engineers plan to keep the disruptions to a minimum.

By rush hour this morning, a problem with the northbound Skyway lanes that caused backups into Manatee County this past weekend should be fixed temporarily, allowing traffic to flow freely again, the Florida Department of Transportation said.

However, the disruptions will return when a permanent fix is installed in about a month.

The Florida Highway Patrol notified the DOT on Friday afternoon that several cars had been damaged by a problem in the northbound lanes just north of the hump.

DOT crews found a small plate covering a failed expansion joint -- the structural system that allows the roadway to expand and contract with temperature changes -- had come loose. Crews worked through the weekend to secure a larger, heavier plate over the damage.

That necessitated a lane closure that backed up traffic into Manatee County, said DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson.

"We expect the work to be finished sometime early Tuesday," Carson said, "but it's only a temporary fix. We'll have to go back and do something permanent in a month or so, and that will mean lane closures again."

When the permanent fix is devised, it will take seven to eight hours to do the work, and both of the northbound lanes of the bridge probably will be closed overnight, Carson said.

Beginning Thursday morning, southbound I-275 through St. Petersburg from 22nd Avenue N to Interstate 375 will be closed for four hours a day to erect new signs. But be warned, the electronic signals along the roadway telling motorists that this is going to happen have the wrong day.

The alert signs tell motorists the southbound lanes will be closed from midnight to 4 a.m. March 13, which is Wednesday.

But John McShaffrey, DOT's spokesman for interstate construction, said the closures won't begin until Thursday morning.

"It all depends on which day owns midnight," McShaffrey said. "Technically, it is the first minute of the new day, but the contractor thought most people think it's the end of the day before."

In any event, the closures will start during the period of midnight to 4 a.m. Thursday morning and continue Friday and Monday mornings.

Crews will put up trusses that will extend over all lanes of southbound traffic.

"They're too big and heavy to allow traffic to be moving underneath the work," McShaffrey said.

The trusses will carry signs re-numbering Exits 9 and 10, which will become Exits 22 and 23 (I-375 and I-175, respectively). For about a year, the signs will carry the old and the new exit numbers, allowing motorists time to become used to the new system, which correlates exit numbers with mile markers.

In addition to noting that the I-375 exit is the route to the Pier, the new signs will also list BayWalk.

During the closures, traffic will be diverted off the interstate onto 22nd Avenue N, east to Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street, south to Fifth Avenue N and then back to I-275 by way of I-375.

When signage is changed on the northbound lanes, the structures will require only a lane closure, McShaffrey said.

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