Christopher Cole

For The News Journal

Cutting southbound Del. 141 to one lane during weekdays has long bottlenecked traffic in the massive multiyear project to rebuild two bridges over I-95 North. The next phase, work on the northbound overpass, could soon make delays even worse for drivers.

Road crews plan to close one lane of Del. 141 north while they begin the same work that they started earlier this year on the southbound bridge. Parts of the northbound route have already been closed off to traffic in recent weeks to make way for utility work, compounding delays for drivers trying to get from New Castle to Newport and beyond.

“It’s crazy,” said Landon Delgiorno, pointing to mid-afternoon congestion along a stretch of 141. A New Castle resident, he said he avoids the entire bridge area during traffic backups by taking Commons Boulevard to the Christiana Mall area to get to his job at Johnson Controls. “I just completely avoid that [interchange].”

STORY: Del. 141 down to one lane, significant delays expected

STORY: Prep work begins for yearslong Del. 141 project

The single northbound and southbound lanes will be closed only between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays, in an effort to head off congestion during peak commuting hours, a state transportation spokesman said. And the lane closures are sporadic depending on the work underway at a given time.

Despite the likelihood of heavy backups in both directions, it only makes sense to work on the north and south bridge projects simultaneously to get them done faster, said Bud Freel, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Transportation, who said the end of 2018 is the projected finish date of the work.

Freel said the agency realizes the inconvenience caused to motorists from the lane closures, but there are no other viable options to replace the 1960s-era spans. For instance, building a new bridge next to the current ones is not feasible because the interstate crosses over Churchman’s Marsh.

Some motorists could find reasonable alternative routes using city streets depending on where they’re going, Freel said, but declined to make any specific suggestions.

“We’re hoping people are finding alternate ways,” he said, noting that road crews are confined to a limited space to break down and rebuild the bridges. “It’s a difficult project. It’s a very tight area to work.”

Some people cross the bridges in both directions more than once a day. Matt Jones, an equipment operator for Guardian Construction, has come to expect long driving delays whether stuck before one of the bridges or taking a longer way around because “you’re spending just as much time waiting in traffic as going a different route. I can’t see this happening for three years, but I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

That time frame – including two years to overhaul the Commons Boulevard intersection with Del. 141 – surprises some motorists, like Jim Bush, who lives in Stanton but comes down to New Castle frequently, often traveling through Newport. He said given the project’s length it would be better to find alternate routes. “I’m sure there might be some side roads or something.”

For others, alternates are not an option.

Dana Jones, an operations analyst at CitiBank headquarters in New Castle, described the road project as “highly annoying.” She uses Del. 141 to pick up her children from school every afternoon and said delays have been frequent. “I wish they would do it at night because … this is not convenient at all for them to have it blocked off at this time of the day.” Jones said she knows of no alternative route.

DelDOT engineers said doing the work at night is not practical because of the increased costs for paying road workers at night and keeping asphalt factories open late.

Reasonable alternatives are hard to come by.

Del. 141 is a key corridor as it links Del. 9 and Del. 273 and serves as the only road crossing I-95 with access points between Wilmington and Christiana, accounting for the high weekday traffic volume.

It will take 48 months to finish the entire project, which DelDOT has been planning for several years, based on current estimates. The current phase involves cutting each bridge laterally in half, tearing down each half of the structure and rebuilding it, with remaining lanes staying open to keep traffic flowing. Work will also begin to revamp the on and off ramps at I-95.

DelDOT’s Freel emphasized the difficulty of demolishing the existing structures and rebuilding them, with the bridges compacted into a small space and the interstate running through. “You’re narrowing down one-half of a [road]; it’s a very, very difficult project.”

“At the same time, you want to be respectful that you’re not closing it down before 9 o'clock,” so road crews face tight schedules along with the space restrictions, he said. But despite the project’s challenges, an overhaul of the aging interchange could not be avoided, Freel said. “It’s an old bridge, and definitely in bad shape and needed to be replaced.”