At long last, the American Tobacco Trail bridge over Interstate 40 is going into place Saturday night, according to City Hall.

A statement issued this morning states that the bridge is going to be set on its foundations by a crane between midnight and 7 a.m. Sunday, requiring that I-40 be closed to traffic between Fayetteville Road and N.C. 751.

Eastbound traffic will be routed around the Southpoint Mall retail area via Renaissance Parkway, westbound routed onto N.C. 54.

Trail users have been anticipating a connection across the interstate since the American Tobacco Trail opened in 2000. Repeated delays for design, financing, bidding, permitting and construction have held it up ever since – most recently this spring when four of the bridge’s eight piers were discovered to have been built 2.5 feet too tall.

According to the city, completion is still expected in July. Along with the bridge, the the $9 million project includes a 4.2-mile extension to complete the greenway in Durham from the American Tobacco complex to Chatham County.

Parts of Raleigh greenway trails will be closed for up to three weeks while the city removes silt and repairs damage caused by recent storms and flooding.

The flooding closed sections of the upper, middle and lower Walnut Creek greenway corridor, and the Buckeye, Oak Park, Ironwood, North Hills, Alleghany, Fallon and Middle Crabtree Creek sections of the Crabtree Creek corridor.

Kellee Beach, the city's parks and recreation marketing administrator, said each trail section will be reopened as soon as it is repaired.

A new four-mile section of the Third Fork Creek Trail is finished and open for business, project manager Don Stewart announced this afternoon.

The pedestrian-bicycle greenway runs from Garrett Road Park near Jordan High School to Southern Boundaries Park on Archdale Drive near Martin Luther King Parkway.

It extends the existing North-South Greenway, following the creek for much of its route and crossing several wetlands and other streams. City and federal stimulus money paid for its construction.
 

Construction work is underway on the Lake Johnson Greenway extension, part of ongoing improvements to the Lake Johnson Dam.

Most of the greenway will remain open through construction, but the parking lot on Lake Dam Road and the trail leading to the lot are now closed, as is the trail next to the spillway. Portions of the greenway will be closed in the coming weeks as the city moves to other phases of construction.

For more information, contact the Lake Johnson Park office at 233-2121 or the City of Raleigh Public Utilities Department at 857-4540.

City Council member Bonner Gaylord tweets frequently. And they're usually witty and funny, which is refreshing coming from a public official.

Last night, he tweeted a word of advice for greenway users:

"If you're considering getting attacked by a dog on the greenway, I would advise selecting daylight hours cus dogs can see at night."

Dogs don't attack on city-owned golf courses. Just sayin...