Broadway in Bangor will be closed to traffic Thursday night for ongoing interstate bridge construction.
That will allow crews to remove the concrete barrier and steel sheets below the Interstate 95 bridge, according to the Maine Department of Transportation.
The closure will be in place from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Drivers should follow posted detour signs.
Drivers heading north on Broadway will be redirected onto Stillwater Avenue, where they can then get onto I-95 South near the mall and then get off the interstate just north of the construction zone, the city of Bangor said Wednesday morning.
Those drivers heading south on Broadway will be redirected onto I-95 South, where they can get off at Union Street and head toward downtown and then get back onto Broadway, the city said.
While traffic will be diverted around the construction, flaggers will help pedestrians navigate the worksite, the Department of Transportation said.
It’s the latest step toward the eventual replacement of the aging bridge carrying Interstate 95 traffic over Broadway. The 152-foot steel girder bridge, built in 1960, is crossed about 50,000 times daily and is in “poor condition,” transportation officials have told the Bangor Daily News. The Maine Department of Transportation expects to complete that work by late next year.
The project will cost more than $30 million.
In recent years other I-95 bridges in Bangor have been replaced, including the Ohio Street bridge in 2020 and the Union Street bridge in 2016, while a yearslong project has begun to redo the Hogan Road interchange.