Those orange barrels on Market Street between Bayshore and Porters Neck are supposed to be gone soon, but drivers in Wilmington will be dealing with construction on other busy roads.
The inside lanes of Market Street from Marsh Oaks Drive to Porters Neck Road are scheduled to be closed through at least April 27. The N.C. Department of Transportation is adding a median and making other improvements to Market Street near where the new Walmart will be.
The work has caused traffic congestion, and DOT officials suggest drivers use a detour that takes traffic around the construction along the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, North College Road and I-140.
Meanwhile, the long-planned replacement of the Third Street bridge in downtown Wilmington has begun. The road will be closed to traffic at that spot for at least one year.
The official detour will funnel traffic from the MLK Parkway to the Isabel Holmes Bridge and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge.
Later this year, in October, Market Street will once again be the site of road construction, at Kerr Avenue. Both streets will be widened, and the busy intersection will be reconfigured to prohibit left turns from Market Street onto Kerr Avenue. New service roads will be installed to handle left-turning traffic.
Five new stoplights and some improvements to Cinema Drive are also included in construction.
The project was to begin this spring, but officials did not want to begin until all the utilities are moved, said Jason Rivenbark, the DOT assistant resident engineer who is overseeing the project. The board of transportation is expected to approve a contract in August, with work beginning sometime in October.
Once construction starts, it will take three years to complete the $18.5 million project. Rivenbark admitted there will be traffic headaches.
“There will be some lane closures,” he said. “It’s going to be hassle, just because it’s construction.”
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