The Delaware River Port Authority has moved up a scheduled "track outage" on its PATCO rail line over the Ben Franklin Bridge to Friday.

PATCO will run a single track both ways across the Ben Franklin Bridge, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, starting Friday until Oct. 21 due to planned construction on the north-bound track.

Initially, that work was scheduled to begin on Labor Day. The work was pushed up five business days to avoid "possible weather-related problems or delays," officials said.

According to PATCO, the construction schedule change will offer "fewer and shorter schedule gaps in both directions."

"This is possible because the configuration of the track east of 8th and Market Street Station provides us with more flexibility to operate trains, which was not possible during the first continuous track outage," said a PATCO statement released this week.

The first track closure began on Memorial Day and ran for approximately two months. The construction is part of a two-year, $103 million PATCO project to replace both sets of tracks along the Ben Franklin Bridge. The project is expected to be completed in early 2016.

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Jason Laday may be reached at jladay@southjerseymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JasonLaday. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.