In response to the traffic bedlam caused by freeway reconstruction projects, Texas officials have increasingly turned to a dramatic solution: shut it down.

Full closures of main freeway lanes for most or all of a weekend are indeed becoming more frequent in North Texas. Four times in the last two months, the Texas Department of Transportation's local districts have taken all traffic off major freeways to tear down overpasses.

Interstate 30 in western Tarrant County got the mother of all detours. Interstate 35E through Oak Cliff has been closed twice. Even the unthinkable — a closure of Central Expressway in Plano — has happened.

It's a rip-the-Band-Aid-off approach to motorists' pain, officials say. Taking out chunks of a bridge at a time causes lengthy lane closures and slows traffic for weeks. Detouring all traffic to frontage roads is the more extreme nuisance, but drivers' woes go away quicker.

"Ultimately, if we feel that it's safer, faster, better, then that's the way we're going to do it," said Val Lopez, a spokesman for TxDOT's Fort Worth district. "We try to do so thoughtfully and with the idea of minimizing impact to drivers."

The fine print in several TxDOT contracts these days requires that lanes be closed only during the lowest volumes of traffic, which means weekends and overnights. Contractors get incentives if they perform multiple activities in a single closure.

Years ago, the Fort Worth district applied the approach during the at-times painful redo of Interstate 30 through Arlington for AT&T Stadium. Multiple overpass demolitions were scheduled, and TxDOT started with an incremental approach, taking chunks at a time off the first overpass and shutting down lanes at a time.

"It just didn't work. It was taking too long," Lopez said. So TxDOT diverted traffic to side roads as it took out other nearby bridges.

"It showed some flexibility on our part," Lopez said. "We determined the safest method was to shut the highway down."

1 / 4TxDOT recently even did the unthinkable: closed Central Expressway in both directions in southern Plano and northern Richardson for the partial demolition of the Plano Parkway bridge.(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer) 2 / 4Traffic moves on Highway 75 near the Plano Parkway bridge in Plano on June 12. (Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer) 3 / 4Traffic moves on Highway 75 under the Plano Parkway bridge in Plano.(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer) 4 / 4A partially demolished Plano Parkway bridge over North Central Expressway in on Nov. 12, 2017.(Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Another I-30 shutdown is on TxDOT's agenda this fall near the State Highway 360 interchange. The closure will have to take into account large crowds at AT&T Stadium during football season, Six Flags Over Texas, Lone Star Park, the Arlington Convention Center and other nearby venues.

The interchange has no continuous frontage roads, which is an outdated remnant from when the road was the tolled Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. The detour off I-30 will put traffic onto Division Street and will affect State Highway 360. Message boards will let motorists know about the shutdown weekend and daily lane closures. TxDOT's Austin base will also use social media to spread the word.

"When we're talking about shutting down an interstate, the impact does transcend the local area," Lopez said.

TxDOT also utilizes a smaller-scale version of the full shutdown approach. Westbound Interstate 20 was closed at Bryant Irvin Road in Fort Worth overnight recently. The next night, into dawn, eastbound I-30 traffic was detoured to the access roads. I-35E overpass construction near Waxahachie caused similar overnight shutdowns in the spring.

Drivers might feel the impact of the shutdowns more now because of the abundance of TxDOT projects. Officials have responded to the region's swelling population by trying to boost roads' capacity. That means ongoing construction on freeways and elsewhere.

"People are moving to North Texas in record amounts," said Michelle Raglon, a spokeswoman for TxDOT's Dallas district. "Some areas have not had road improvements for 50 years."