View I-85 Yadkin River Bridge in a larger map

The work has taken longer than expected, but construction on a long-sought replacement for the harrowing Interstate 85 bridge near Salisbury will mark a milestone this weekend when the current two-lane northbound traffic is moved from the narrow old bridge to a new four-lane bridge.

Gov. Bev Perdue traveled to the site of the half-mile-long I-85 Yadkin River bridges project Thursday to announce the traffic shift, set to take place early Saturday morning.  That's almost two months later than the state Department of Transportation had expected to make the change, according to DOT officials and a timeline posted at the project website.

DOT had predicted that both northbound and southbound drivers would be off the old bridge -- two lanes in each direction -- by May 21.  When that happens, now scheduled for July, northbound and southbound drivers will share the new four-lane northbound bridge temporarily.

The twin four-lane bridge for southbound traffic now is expected to open in early 2013, instead of early November as scheduled earlier.

The narrow bridge, built in 1955, carries 70,000 cars and trucks every day on the main interstate highway between Richmond and Atlanta. Its replacement will give travelers a faster and less frightening trip over the Yadkin River.  DOT is spending more than $200 million to replace the bridge and add new lanes to a nearby stretch of I-85.

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The state Senate quietly blew off one of the big items in Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget for 2010-11: $94.6 million for a new Mobility Fund that would help fix the I-85 Yadkin River bridge-and-bottleneck now and fix other unspecified transportation problems later.

Perdue had proposed to divert $22 million this year, and more in future years, from the dwindling yearly transfer from the Highway Trust Fund to the General Fund. And she wanted to produce another $74.6 million a year in new money by hiking some DMV fees -- mostly by increasing everybody's car registration fee from $28 to $35.

None of this was included in the budget moving through the state Senate this week.

Some transportation and urban advocates had cheered the idea, arguing that any increase in transportation spending was welcome.

But the Mobility Fund was vaguely explained from the start, and the ideas for how to spend it varied widely from one side of the capital to the other. ... [MORE]

View I-85 Yadkin River Bridge in a larger map

Construction will start in October on an eight-lane bridge to replace the antique, four-lane structure that carries Interstate 85 across the Yadkin River at Salisbury.

Sixty thousand cars and trucks cross the narrow, 55-year-old bridge every day. It's one of the most congested, nerve-wracking stretches of I-85 between Richmond and Atlanta.

Gene Conti, the state transportation secretary, signed the $136 million bridge contract today with Flatiron Constructors and the Lane Construction Corp. The job is to be finished in 2013. ... [MORE]

View I-85 Yadkin River Bridge in a larger map

The U.S. Department of Transportation today awarded North Carolina just $10 million of the $300 million it requested last year in federal stimulus funds to widen Interstate 85 near Salisbury, and to replace the obsolescent four-lane bridge over the Yadkin River.

So the state Department of Transportation will face an indefinite delay on a $150 million project to widen six miles of I-85, mostly north of Salisbury.

But DOT will use a fall-back plan to get started this summer with construction on a new eight-lane, $180 million Yadkin River bridge. ... [MORE]