Published: July 03, 2008 09:08 pm      

Road crews clear way for Fourth traffic

BLUEFIELD — Despite the high cost of fuel, highway department officials of the two Virginias think that motorists traveling on I-77 won’t be delayed by lane closures throughout the July 4 weekend.

John McBrayer, District Ten manager of the West Virginia Division of Highways said the district traditionally suspends highway maintenance projects during periods of heavy traffic flow when the projects involve interstate lane closures.

“That’s normally what we do when we expect a high volume of traffic,” McBrayer said. The DOH closed a north and southbound lane on I-77 between Bluefield and Princeton during a bridge-replacement project, but that phase of the project has been completed.

“We had a crew out there on Wednesday to smooth out a little section, but they were only there that day,” he said. The DOH will tackle the other half of the bridge-replacement project in September.

Officials with the Bristol District of the Virginia Department of Transportation issued a traffic alert Thursday stating that, where possible, all lanes on Virginia interstate highways will be opened to handle the increase holiday traffic flow. Locally in Bland County, the north and southbound lanes of Big Walker and East River Mountain tunnels will remain open throughout the weekend with work resuming on the tunnel restoration projects at 7 a.m., Monday, July 7.

“Holiday traffic is always higher than normal,” VDOT spokesperson Michelle Earl said. VDOT statistical information for 2007 reveals that an average of 27,000 vehicles per day traveled north and southbound through Bland County, Va., “on a holiday, we could see twice as much as that or more,” Earl said.

VDOT officials urged motorists to buckle up, avoid distractions, share the road, drive drug and alcohol free and obey speed limits as part of the state’s “Highway Safety Challenge.”

– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com