I-40 will be closed at Aviation Parkway this weekend, but the detour will be short
Interstate 40 will be closed in both directions at Aviation Parkway this weekend so contractors can demolish a bridge over the highway.
The detour will be short: Eastbound and westbound drivers will be directed off the exit ramps and across Aviation Parkway back on to the highway. The detour will be in place from 8 p.m. Friday until as late as 5 a.m. Monday, according to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
Aviation Parkway itself will be closed where it crosses I-40. Westbound drivers will be able to turn right to get to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, but no other turns will be permitted during the demolition work.
Depending on their destination, drivers are encouraged to use the Airport Boulevard or North Harrison Avenue interchanges instead.
Workers will be taking down a bridge that has carried Aviation Parkway over I-40 since 1969. The bridge needed to be replaced, and NCDOT is using the occasion to redesign the interchange, by adding a looping exit ramp from westbound I-40 onto southbound Aviation Parkway.
That loop ramp opened earlier this month, along with a new bridge to carry the parkway over the highway. After the old span comes down this weekend, a second new one will take its place for northbound parkway traffic.
NCDOT and its contractors considered demolishing the bridge in stages over several nights. But they determined the work could be done more easily and quickly in one weekend, in large part because there’s less traffic because of the coronavirus outbreak, said NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
“We were seeing a 54% reduction in traffic there when the decision was made,” Homan wrote in an email.
