Construction may begin as early as this month on the long-awaited replacement of the Moores Mill Bridge that crosses Interstate 85. The new bridge will tout five lanes for vehicle traffic and a multi-purpose pedestrian and biking lane.
The bridge replacement is intended to alleviate bumper-to-bumper traffic for hundreds of citizens who use Moores Mill Road every day to get into the city in the mornings.
According to Jeffery Ramsey, Auburn’s director of public works and city engineer, construction is expected to begin within the next month.
“We don’t have an exact date yet,” Ramsey said. “We’re still waiting on the Notice to Proceed to be issued by the state. Our best guess is probably within a month.”
The Auburn City Council approved a resolution March 1, that authorized Mayor Bill Ham and the office of City Manager Charles Duggan to execute an agreement with the state to construct the bridge replacement.
Funding for the project, according to City Council documents, will be provided in-part by the Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program, state road and bridge funding and advance bridge construction funding.
Eighty percent of the funding for the $10 million–11 million project will be provided by the state of Alabama with more than $8 million in funding sourced from ATRIP. The state is also providing more than $600,000 in funding from the state Road and Bridge Fund and the Advance Bridge Construction Fund.
The city will provide between $2 million–3 million in funding, according to City Council documents and Ramsey.
Construction on the new five-lane bridge connecting the Moores Mill and Ogletree neighborhoods to downtown Auburn is expected to take between 18–24 months to complete, Ramsey said.
The contract to build the new bridge was awarded to Scott Bridge Company, a contractor based in Opelika.
Construction of the bridge will take place in phases, according to Ramsey. A new, two-lane bridge will be built adjacent to the existing bridge. Once construction of the new portion of the bridge is complete, the old, two-lane bridge will be torn down and replaced by the remaining three lanes of the new bridge.
“We won’t have any detours,” Ramsey said. “There will be times when traffic will be delayed because of equipment moving back and forth across the road. We’ll actually be able to use that same route throughout the whole construction.”
David Dorton, director of public affairs for the City of Auburn, said the bridge will help alleviate growing pains for the Moores Mill and Ogletree neighborhoods.
“The Moores Mill project will improve traffic flow on this well-used route to and from the Moores Mill and Ogletree area,” Dorton said. “This project has been a long time in the making. We’ve been talking about it for a number of years and thought we had federal funding for it back in the 2010–12 timeframe, but that funding fell through.”
In the morning and afternoon rush hours, traffic can be seen backed up for miles along Moores Mill Road as commuters struggle to cross the two-lane bridge, according to Ward 5 Councilwoman Lynda Tremaine.
The Moores Mill area constitutes a large portion of Tremaine’s ward.
“The idea is going to be five lanes,” Tremaine said. “So going from two to five lanes with some turn lanes will certainly help get the traffic flowing. That area of town is growing more and more. It is a quagmire in the early morning, and I avoid going out that way at quitting time in the evening.”
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