By Tommy Stevenson, Associated Press
Tuscaloosa, AL – The widening of U.S. Highway 82 between Northport and the Pickens County line is coming along slowly, with the Alabama Department of Transportation planning to complete the project by summer 2010.
The project, which will widen the highway to four lanes, is taking years to complete, partly because the 3-mile segment crosses the difficult terrain of the Sipsey Swamp west of Coker.
ALDOT recently cleared one hurdle, opening two new lanes last month. Traffic has been diverted to those lanes from the original two lanes, which are now closed.
The next phase will be to rehabilitate the original lanes, ALDOT Fifth Division Engineer L. Dee Rowe said in an e-mail. Removal of the old bridges over the river and adjacent swamp land is under way, Rowe said.
"Bridge removal and reconstruction and resurfacing is expected to take until about mid-2010, at which time the traffic will be split into two eastbound and two westbound lanes," she said.
The project began in January 2003. The first phase included the construction of the six bridges and their approaches at a cost of about $5 million. The bridge work was completed in October 2005 and the new lanes opened two weeks ago.
Rowe said the newly begun phase will cost more than $14 million because of the difficulty of working in swampland.
ALDOT signs at each end of the new phase Buhl Cut-Off Road to the east and Boyd Road to the west say $11.2 million of that will come from federal highway funds, with another $2.8 million from state funds.
The project area is between mileposts 33 and 36. When finished, U.S. 82 will be at least four lanes across Tuscaloosa County. At the Pickens County line, however, it narrows to two lanes.
Eventually, the major east-west thoroughfare, which was begun more than a decade ago, will be widened to four lanes all the way to the Mississippi line, said Tony Harris, governmental relations manager for ALDOT.