Nearly a year into the Houghton Rd. Bridge project, people will now begin to use one of the new bridges instead of the original one.
“It’s a great step forward for our community, it really is,” Theresa Walker said.
She has to commute across the bridge daily to take her kids to school, but it often was a rough ride. The old bridge had only two narrow lanes and was covered in potholes.
“We really needed the work done on the bridge,” she said.
While there’s only one new bridge right now, there will soon be two. Each bridge will have three lanes of traffic, a bike lane, and a sidewalk. To the project manager Austin Wesnitzer, this is a major improvement.
“Everybody’s going to notice a much safer experience going over the bridge than they did before,” Wesnitzer said.
As the area is expanding and growing, he says this is just a small piece of the puzzle. The ultimate goal, according to the project manager, is to have three lanes of traffic through the entire Houghton Corridor, which stretches from I-10 to Tanque Verde.
Wesnitzer anticipates the project will be finished this fall. For the next several months, traffic will be on the new bridge, but there’ll still only be two lanes. But, the road itself is brand new.
“There won’t be any more potholes to avoid,” he said. “They’ll be able to go quicker over the bridge.”
Walker says she can deal, for a few more months at least, because the end product will be a major improvement.
“I think it’s going to better direct the traffic for us,” she said. “Especially early morning and late afternoon.”
