Chesapeake In The Know

The Centerville Turnpike Bridge is going to close to road traffic for six months beginning on August 24 for a rehab project. The bridge is over 60 years old and starting to show its age. This project will make the bridge more reliable for several more years while City staff look into funding and plans for a future bridge replacement. The full project will take about 16 months so there could be shorter intermittent closures throughout that time. When the project is over, the bridge might not look all that different but it will be safer and more reliable.

During the closure, you can expect to find increased traffic on the alternate routes such as the Chesapeake Expressway and Mt. Pleasant Rd. Traffic Engineering will be closely monitoring the traffic flow on alternate routes throughout the closure and will adjust the traffic signal timing as best as possible to accommodate the extra volume. We are also suspending all non-emergency road work on the alternate routes during the day. A lot of thought has gone into how we can make this closure as painless as possible but with more than 15,000 vehicles a day looking for an alternate route, we recognize that this will be tough for everyone in the area no matter what we do.

It’s never an easy decision to close a major roadway for any period of time and we certainly do not take these decisions lightly. But we’re confident that this is the safest, most efficient, most fiscally responsible plan. You can stay up to date with project information by visiting www.CityofChesapeake.net/Centerville or by signing up to receive project alerts by texting PEAKETRAFFIC to 888-777.