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Citizens are reporting wait times from 20 to 40 minutes to cross the Highway 701 bridge over the Cape Fear River in Elizabethtown. North Carolina Department of Transportation announced last week both lanes of the North Bound US Highway 701 over the Cape Fear River is closed. Traffic will be rerouted to the Southbound lanes. The closure has a WIDE LOAD TRAFFIC RESTRICTION.

Andrew Barksdale with the North Carolina Department of Transportation gave an update on Tuesday afternoon. The contracted construction workers will make changes to the traffic pattern starting on Wednesday morning with the supervision of the NCDOT.

The northbound traffic did have less of a wait time due to the fact that the traffic backed up in town would cause more traffic issues with other intersections in Elizabethtown. However, starting on Wednesday morning there is a new plan in place to decrease the wait time for the southbound traffic. Also, accommodations have been made for emergency vehicles to get through the traffic if needed due to emergencies.

As NCDOT announced last week on BladenOnline, the traffic will only be limited to one lane this week from 9 am until 4 pm. The construction causing the traffic delays should be finished by Friday at 4 pm as long as there are no weather delays.

Motorists are asked to plan a different route if possible from 9 am through 4 pm until Friday this week. Early morning and evening traffic flow should not be affected.

According to Barksdale, the traffic patterns across the US Highway 701 bridge will change from time to time due to the new bridge construction, but hopefully, issues like these will be a minimal inconvenience. The road work is due to a new bridge being built to replace the current bridge over the Cape Fear River. The new bridge will be more durable but will come with growing pains like the one motorists faced today. The new bridge construction will be completed in three to four years.