Traveling on Durham's Main Street is about to get a bit more difficult, and it's going to stay that way for more than a year.
Three reconstruction projects are scheduled for Main Street between Ninth Street and Peabody, including replacement of the Campus Drive bridge.
City Transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen said estimates are the bridge project will take up to 12 months, requiring Main Street to be closed for the duration. NCDOT is also planning to resurface the street in conjunction with bridge replacement.
The bridge project can't start, though, until after the city replaces a water line under Main Street. That project is starting in two to three weeks, Water Director Don Greeley said, and could be finished in July though the contractor has up to nine months for the job.
Ahrendsen said the bridge project will be scheduled so as not to conflict with Duke University's move-in day, in mid-August. NCDOT is considering offering incentives for finishing the job in less than a year.
NCDOT considers the bridge, built in 1950, to be "functionally obsolete" due to the narrow confines of the Campus Drive underpass and its low clearance.v
