BATON ROUGE – Nearly one year after an EBR Parish maintenance truck damaged the bridge at Airline Highway and US 190, repair work is finally set to begin Saturday.
REMINDER: 190 Westbound @ US 61 will be CLOSED Saturday from 6am-7pm. This is to repair the Airline/Florida interchange that was damaged almost a year ago.
— Falon Brown (@FalonBtv) March 24, 2023
All lanes on the westbound side of US 190 will be shut down for the construction work from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday. The left lane on US 190 East will also be closed to drivers.
Rodney Mallett, a spokesperson for DOTD, said the work is to repair a damaged girder and deck at the interchange.Â
“The contractor had to fabricate the girder. It’s not something you just go and buy off the shelf, so they had to build it, and they shipped it in, so that’s what took so long,” Mallett said.
In February, DOTD told WBRZ the fix would cost anywhere from $500,000 to $700,000, but that total has since gone up and now tops $900,000.
“This is not your typical repair project. When we were doing all of this, it was pretty much in line with what we thought it was going to be, but I can tell you we are seeing a lot of projects coming in higher than they should,” Mallett said.
A spokesperson for the city-parish said they are taking full responsibility for the damage and are in the process of going through a reimbursement.Â
More overnight lane closures are expected for next week. Mallett said the entire repair should be complete by May, weather permitting.
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