Dec 20, 2018 2 min read

Construction crews working on Interstate 70 will take a holiday break for the next few weeks, starting Friday.

According to Scott Faieta, assistant construction engineer for the state Department of Transportation, the construction teams for the widening project on I-70 are expected back to work Jan. 7.

“You won’t see anybody out there working, so we won’t be affecting holiday traffic,” Faieta said. “Traffic has slowed down since the Thanksgiving holiday. Christmas is on a Tuesday this year, so I’m not expecting to see a whole lot of difference in traffic.

The project, to reconstruct and widen a 5 ½-mile stretch of I-70 between the East Beau Street and Route 519/Eighty Four exits, is expected to be completed in mid-October of 2020. The $117.8 million project began about a year and a half ago and, according to Faieta, is about halfway done.

Before the holiday break, Faieta said crews will remove a temporary ramp where I-79 northbound traffic moves to I-70 eastbound, and move traffic back to the normal ramp. This change will also remove the lane shift just beyond the ramp.

When crews return to work in January, Faieta said they are expected to work on a sound-barrier wall on the westbound lanes of I-70, between the south junction and East Beau Street exits. That work won’t require any lane closures, he said. In March, they anticipate resuming some concrete paving to finish up work on the westbound side of the project, before a major traffic change in April to start construction of the eastbound lanes.

Faieta said the project is a couple of weeks behind schedule due to “a very wet 2018.”

The contractor, Lane Construction, has been paid about $51 million to date for the work, he said.