Nightmare on Broad Street to continue on The Murfreesboro Post

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Nightmare on Broad Street to continue

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer

Posted: Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:52 pm

The nightmare on Broad Street started months ago and still might have months more before its finished.

What started out as a simple bridge repair project on one of Murfreesboro’s busiest roads has truly turned into a nightmare for the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

TDOT started the project to replace two bridges over Lytle Creek on Northwest Broad Street in February with a target completion date of June 15.

But June 15 is just a few days away and TDOT only started the final phase of the project Saturday. Traffic has been shifted to the west side of the road with two lanes in both directions and a center turn lane, but still no left-hand turns are allowed at Main Street.

“The contractor will now begin removing deteriorating concrete on this part of the bridge, then will pour new concrete. The concrete will then have to cure for a couple of weeks,” explained B.J. Doughty, spokeswoman for TDOT.

“TDOT now anticipates the project being complete in late July or early August due to a substantial amount of repairs that were added to the job,” Doughty added.

Doughty explained the bridges were concrete covered in asphalt, making a true assessment impossible.

At first, TDOT thought only part of the concrete would have to be replaced on the bridges.

“Sometimes, the news is good and there are less repairs that are actually needed. And other times, there are more,” Doughty said.

This time the news was bad and after removing the asphalt, crews found the bridges in worse shape than initially thought, meaning more work was needed.

“In this case, there were more repairs, some of which had to be made from the bottom or underneath the bridge rather than from the top,” Doughty said. “That's where the weather really didn't cooperate because Lytle Creek was high enough to delay some of that work for a time during the spring.”

Not only does the weather delay and additional work mean more headaches for Murfreesboro drivers, it also means traffic snarls during Uncle Dave Macon Days, which brings thousands of tourists to town for an old-fashioned good time.

TDOT has a meeting planned with representatives from the city of Murfreesboro in the near future to discuss the status of the project.

“We will also discuss Uncle Dave Macon Days and will be looking for solutions to deal with the heavier volume of traffic that will be traveling through the project area,” Doughty said.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

Tagged under BJ Doughty, Broad Street, TDOT, Traffic, Uncle Dave Macon Days

Member Opinions:

By: thinkingman on 6/9/09
Murfreesboro has the worst planned roads - both in layout and in maintenance - in the US. I am stunned nobody has lost their job over the sorry state of roads here.

By: Macgyver on 6/9/09
Are you kidding, Haley is a god!!! The buck stops there when it comes to road planning in the past. How many streets in the city can you recacll that change names at intersections? Talk about confusing, but we now have those nifty blue signs telling us where to go.

By: Farmall on 6/10/09
I personally find manuvering around town much easier since main street if off limits to broad. Wish it could stay that way. Also noticed they have taken down the signs that say "maintain 40 mph" thought that was a bit much since the lanes are so slender.

By: mainstreetmusic on 6/11/09
yes there putting us out of bus ..we are close to loosing our bus that we worked hard to build becouse of poor planning on the city and dot,s part .. not giving us the real scoop on the bridge repair. .traffic and barrels have blocked our store from feb to now and we have lost all of our bus not to mention loosing our house and being locked ina 3 year lease and not able to pay our rent at the music store .. with no help from our state goverment or dot or city mayors office we are just hung out to dry ...not to mention having to drive around town and dodge the train to get to work every morning ...i thought murfreesboro would be a place to raise my kids and put our bus but not if we cant feed them...

By: Farmall on 6/11/09
When I was running a business the parking lot was re black topped, had almost no business the whole day. I can't imagine what that would have been like for months. I know I would have had to at least lay everbody off.