Tybee Road is frequently the scene of traffic bottlenecks - just not in January, when weather is inhospitable to beach-going sunbathers.
The section of U.S. 80 near the Bull River bridge saw a rare winter logjam Monday as the Georgia Department of Transportation began a month-long project to perform preliminary construction related to replacing the Bull River and Lazaretto Creek bridges.
The work will be performed day and night, which came as a surprise to several Tybee commuters who expressed frustration with slow-going traffic at the Bull River Bridge on Monday morning. Crews installed traffic signals overnight on Sunday to reduce the bridge to one lane, which will allow one direction of traffic at a time while reserving the other lane for the bridge work.
According to a GDOT spokesperson, engineers are studying the bridge's substructure and could not utilize a barge because much of the bridge spans marshland. GDOT is starting with the Bull River bridge and will perform the same work at Lazaretto Creek later this month.
"This is necessary work," said GDOT's Jill Nagel. "We’re getting preliminary pre-construction done."
GDOT announced plans to replace the bridges in early 2022 after decades of lobbying by local government officials and residents. The current bridges were built in the 1960s and limit traffic to two lanes, one in each direction. The new bridges will be wide enough to accommodate a breakdown lane as well as a bicycle and pedestrian lane, which can be used for emergency vehicles.
The new bridges are part of a $100 million project to widen U.S. 80 between the Johnny Mercer Boulevard intersection, located about a quarter-mile west of Bull River Bridge, and just past the Lazaretto Creek Bridge on Tybee Island.
The preliminary work is expected to continue through Feb. 16. The schedule calls for the both bridges to be fully open to traffic between Jan. 19 and Jan. 22 as well as between Feb. 3 through Feb. 6.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Tybee traffic in January? GDOT bridge work at Bull River frustrates commuters
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