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Skyway repairs add hours to travels
By JEAN HELLER, Times Staff Writer
An unexpectedly difficult repair job on the Sunshine Skyway turned rush hour into a frustrating mess Thursday morning -- and drivers should expect more delays in coming weeks.
As a result, both southbound lanes remained closed through the teeth of the morning commute. One southbound lane reopened at 9 a.m. and the other an hour later. Traffic backed up as much as 2 miles at the south end of the bridge in Manatee County with waits to cross as long as two hours. For safety reasons, northbound and southbound traffic had to alternate using the northbound lanes. Waits at the north end of the bridge lasted for an hour. "Trying to lift and replace a 20-ton joint in a confined space with low tolerances for error presented us with unexpected challenges," said Pepe Garcia, structures and facilities engineer for the Florida Department of Transportation. "This is not the kind of work we do on a routine basis, and it has a very steep learning curve," Garcia said. "We think we've now reached the top of the learning curve and this situation won't happen again. We're very sorry." There is still work to be done on the 20-ton, steel and rubber joint that was put in place Thursday. "We need to secure it," Garcia said. "Right now, people will notice that they're driving on plates that we put over the joint. They shouldn't worry. It's perfectly safe." Bill and Ann Turner thought they had planned their trip from Bradenton to St. Petersburg carefully Thursday morning. "We had appointments to have our hair cut, and I'd been listening to television since 5 a.m.," Bill Turner said. "When they said the bridge would be open by 8 a.m., we thought we'd go ahead and try it. But when we got to where U.S. 19 crosses the interstate, it was wall-to-wall traffic, and it wasn't moving an inch. We just turned around and came home. We'll live with long hair for a couple more weeks." Walter Miller, an associate superintendent of Pinellas County schools, decided at the last minute to take U.S. 41 to the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway in Tampa and then cut west on the Gandy Bridge. "A traffic reporter on the radio said you could take the Skyway if you didn't mind waiting an hour, or you could use as alternatives U.S. 41, U.S. 301 or Interstate 75," Miller said. "I decided on 41. It took me about 45 minutes longer to get to the office, but it was a lot less stressful. Ironically, the longest backup I hit was for a school bus loading children." A lot of people apparently heeded the advice to find alternate routes. Traffic was reported much heavier than usual on I-75 and even on I-4. Here is the new, revised, likely to be revised again schedule for work on the Skyway: Beginning tonight and lasting through Monday, single-lane closures on the bridge will take place from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. to secure the replaced joint and prepare for the next joint replacement. On Tuesday, both southbound lanes will be closed again from 10 p.m. and are scheduled to reopen Wednesday at 5 a.m. During this night, the second defective expansion joint in the southbound lanes will be replaced. Again, northbound and southbound traffic will have to alternate using the northbound lanes. After the Labor Day weekend, there will be seven or eight days of single-lane closures in the northbound lanes of the bridge to prepare for the final two joint replacements. On Wednesday, Sept. 11, both northbound lanes will close at 10 p.m. and are scheduled to reopen at 5 a.m. Thursday. During this night, at least one of the defective joints in the northbound lanes will be replaced. Traffic will alternate in the southbound lanes. As has been the case so far, the schedule is subject to delays due to rain. Since the work involves having crews high on the bridge with cranes, they cannot work if there is a threat of lightning.
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