New target date for reopening Patton Creek bridge is Nov. 9, county says

October 30, 2020

1:08 PM

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The replacement of the Patton Creek bridge on Patton Chapel Road should be complete and the road reopened by Nov. 9, 2020, depending on the results of conrete tests, Deputy Jefferson County Manager Cal Markert said on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020. This is the status of the project as of Friday, Oct. 30.

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Photo by Jon Anderson

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Jefferson County hopes to reopen the bridge over Patton Creek on Patton Chapel Road by Nov. 9, depending on results of concrete testing and some other factors, Deputy County Manager Cal Markert said Thursday.

The bridge has been shut down since March 24 as the county replaces and widens it. It has been closed more than twice as long as county officials originally expected when traffic was shut down.

Originally, the tentative date for reopening the bridge was June 21, which would have been almost three months of the road being closed and traffic being diverted. But Markert said in March that the June 21 date was heavily dependent on the weather.

Now, the road has been closed for more than seven months, prompting numerous people to contact city and county officials about the delays. One commenter on social media joked the contractor was trying to build it faster than the Golden Gate Bridge was built, so maybe it would be done by 2023.

Markert said the biggest reason for the delay was that a Birmingham Water Works line had to be relocated.

“We couldn’t control that as much as we wanted to. That delayed us severely,” Markert said. “We had to wait til they got that out of the way to get a certain amount of the work done.”

Also, a major rain event on Aug. 30 blew out footings for wing walls, and that work had to be redone, causing at least three to four more weeks of delay, he said.

The bridge runs over Patton Creek in the 1600 block of Patton Chapel Road, between Gwin Elementary School and Cornwall Road and right next to the entrance of Patton Creek Condominiums.

About 18,000 vehicles normally travel that stretch of road on the average day, but traffic has been diverted for more than seven months.

The official detour route from U.S. 31 is to go south on U.S. 31, turn right onto John Hawkins Parkway, right onto Galleria Boulevard and left onto Chapel Lane, which connects back with Patton Chapel Road at Gwin Elementary.

However, many people have been using neighborhood streets as a cut-through, greatly increasing traffic on roads such as Teakwood Road, Kestwick Drive, Hummingbird Lane, Deo Dara Drive and Winchester Road.

The new bridge will have both a pedestrian path and a bicycle lane, Markert said. A house on Patton Chapel Road across from the Patton Creek Condominiums was torn down in March to facilitate the construction project.

The bridge replacement is part of a larger $11 million project to add a middle turn lane along a 1-mile stretch of Patton Chapel Road between Gwin Elementary School and Crayrich Drive. Patton Chapel Road already was widened and realigned between Crayrich Drive and U.S. 31.

Map courtesy of Jefferson County

Patton Chapel Rd map 10-29-20

This map shows the entirety of an $11 million project to widen Patton Chapel Road from Crayrich Drive to Gwin Elementary School, replace and widen the Patton Creek bridge and realign the intersection of Patton Chapel Road, Chapel Lane, Chapel Road and and Preserve Parkway.

The construction project also includes realigning Patton Chapel Road’s intersections with Preserve Parkway and Chapel Lane into one four-way intersection and building a 1-mile sidewalk from Crayrich Drive to an existing sidewalk near Gwin Elementary.

Map courtesy of Jefferson County

Patton Chapel Rd map 2

This map shows the future layout for the intersection of Patton Chapel Road, Chapel Lane, Chapel Road and Preserve Parkway. Work to realign the intersections of the roads should intensify after the completion of the replacement of the bridge over Patton Creek just to east. The bridge is scheduled to be completed Nov. 9, pending results of concrete tests and other factors. The intersection realignment should take an estimated two months, depending on the weather, county officials say.

Once the Patton Creek bridge is reopened, work will intensify on the intersection and should take another two months, depending on the weather, Markert said. Work will then shift to the section of Patton Chapel between Crayrich Drive and Tamassee Lane, which is expected to take about four months, he said.

The entire project initially was slated to be completed by the end of 2020, but Markert said the revised completion date is now around the end of August 2021.

The project originally was expected to cost about $8 million but ended up costing about $11 million, Markert said. Jefferson County and Hoover each are contributing $1.25 million, and the rest is coming from the federal government.

The Alabama Department of Transportation had to approve all the plans and modifications to the plans along the way because it handles the distribution of federal money for road projects in the state.