Business 40 will be closing in Winston-Salem in November, but may reopen in a shorter time than expected. The original contract was to have the project completed in 21 months, but an agreement between the N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and lead contractor Flatiron Construction could shorten the closure to 17 months, with opportunities to reopen the road even earlier.
NCDOT resident engineer Mezak Tucker said in a statement: “There are incentives to shorten the duration of construction to 14-15 months. The agreement will also speed up the opening of the bridges.”
The bridges which will be closed are on Church, Liberty, Cherry, Main, Green, Fourth and Marshall streets. Additional closures will be the bridges on Brookstown Avenue, the Strollway and the Green Street pedestrian bridge.
The incentives mean the road could reopen by January 2020.
“Our lead contractor has agreed to bring in more contractors to work to finish the job faster,” said NCDOT division engineer Pat Ivey. “This is just a continuation of the same process we have been working on with our design-build team.”
Ivey explained that two other components connected with the Business 40 closing were accelerated through negotiations with contractors.
The lane closures on Business 40 for the Peter’s Creek Parkway bridge construction was reduced from 45 days to 16. The second phase of that project is hopefully being reduced from 60 to 20 days.