Nighttime Interstate 5 traffic will be detoured at Ridgefield

RIDGEFIELD — Motorists will encounter nighttime closures on Interstate 5 beginning next week as contractors place steel girders on a new overpass spanning the freeway.

The southbound lanes will close from 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Monday, March 15, until 4 a.m. the following mornings to place girders for the west end of the new Pioneer Street overcrossing.

Northbound lanes will close nightly from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. March 16-19 while crews set the girders on the east side.

Workers will use the existing ramps to detour as many as 600 vehicles an hour. The existing overcrossing will be closed to through traffic.

The project

Two large cranes will be set up on I-5 to lift the 130-foot-long, 150,000-pound girders off a semitruck and into place. Each of the two bridge spans has 14 girders. Workers will place as many as five girders each night.

The $28 million project is expected to be done in late 2011.