NORTH SMITHFIELD — The Rhode Island Department of Transportation has announced that Route 146A South at Route 146 will be closed for the weekend beginning on Friday, Nov. 15.
According to a release from RIDOT, all lanes will close starting at 9 p.m. on Friday for demolition associated with reconstruction of the interchange. The road is scheduled to reopen on Monday, Nov. 18 at 6 a.m.
RIDOT will also reduce Route 146 North to one lane of travel at Route 146A during the closure.
During the weekend construction, Route 146A southbound traffic will need to follow a detour using Smithfield Road and Greenville Road to access Route 146 North or South. A map highlighting this route is available at www.ridot.net/DetourMaps.
The closure will allow RIDOT to demolish the old Spring Brook Bridge, which carries Route 146 North over Route 146A South. RIDOT has already built a portion of a new bridge, and the latest stage of work will reportedly see the old structure removed with the new route widened.
More inconvenience for the taxpayers so the state and union can waste more taxpayer funds.
Oh yeah, a new road after 50+ years is a real waste (◔_◔)
If this project was done by a private non union contractor and the state was not involved except to pay the bill, the project would have been done in half the time at half the costs. No that’s waste. Do you really think it takes $200 million to fix a road?
It does if you need to keep it open at the same time, and you’d like the men & women building it to earn a living instead of depending on public services. Building public infrastructure with profit in mind, instead of quality & public benefit, is how you get the Washington st bridge.
All roads and bridges in RI have been built by the same high cost, zero quality, lazy union contractors. The State of RI then does zero maintenance coupled with the poorly built quality you get the Washington Bridge issue. So you think we should continue with the same process and continue to get the same lack of quality for a high cost. As far as profit, the union and the contractor must be making excessive profit on a ridiculous $200M. Now let’s review history, it took 2 years to build the Sagamore Bridge in 1933 to 1935 with antiquated equipment and materials. Now the new bridge is projected to take 5 years with modern equipment and materials. This proves the point of union greed and the motto don’t kill the job.
You would think they would have learned from the people that bilt the bridges back in the 30s that it is possible to build a bridge with quality. Like you said the built it with old equipment and no technology and the quality is much better than what they build now
Your correct it shows corprate and union greed
Agreed, let’s build it like we built the Sagamore bridge. The Sagamore & Bourne bridges were both built by the PWA, a New Deal program that provided the poor with good paying jobs while building public infrastructure. These programs, along with the GI bill after the war, led to the most prosperous period in US history.
Really?