Access road opens to Helton Drive businesses

FLORENCE - A new road providing access to Helton Drive businesses that were cut off by construction of the Patton Island bridge corridor has opened as the corridor project inches closer to completion.

Kerry Blanton, project supervisor for Wright Brothers Construction, said the new access road runs from Tune Avenue, parallel with Florence Boulevard, until it turns north and follows the old route of Helton Drive. It then connects with Lawrence Avenue.

Blanton said the road opened Wednesday.

"It will be half asphalt and half stone (for now)," Blanton said.

"We had to do that to be able to do some more work on it."

Workers will now concentrate on completing the curbs and gutters and laying the rest of the asphalt for the access road.

When the current phase of the Patton Island bridge is completed, it will provide four-lane access from Huntsville Road to Hermitage Drive. That part of the project also will provide access to Florence Boulevard.

Blanton said paving on the main line of the Patton Island bridge corridor, between Huntsville Road and Florence Boulevard, has been completed. Street lights also have been installed along that stretch and have been operational for about a month, he said.

The new roadbed being built between Florence Boulevard and Hermitage Drive has been graded and covered with crushed stone.

"We're hoping that by the end of (this) week we're going to have the asphalt on it," Blanton said.

Blanton said it's possible the new road in its entirety, from Hermitage Drive to Huntsville Road, will be paved by Thanksgiving.

When that occurs, the expanded road will be completed from Hermitage Drive in Florence to just past Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals.

The new road could begin carrying traffic when the paving project is completed around Thanksgiving, but Blanton said it would be up to the state Department of Transportation to decide when to open the road.

At that point, the road would be lacking the surface layer, which would most likely not be applied until next spring.

Contractors must still complete landscaping and related work along the roadway.

Blanton said traffic signals must be installed around the Florence Boulevard intersection before traffic will be allowed.

Work also continues on the Railroad Avenue overpass, which is part of the project and is being widened to accommodate additional lanes.

Blanton said the next lane shift on Florence Boulevard would occur when the westbound lane on the overpass is completed, which should be late November.

He said the eastbound side of the overpass would not be completed until March.

Blanton said the entire road project is still on schedule to be completed by next summer.

"We're still well ahead of schedule," Blanton said.

Alabama Department of Transportation Division Engineer James Brown said the department is still purchasing right-of-way for the first of two phases of the southern Patton Island bridge corridor in Colbert County.

The next phase in Muscle Shoals runs from near the Avalon Avenue-Wilson Dam Road intersection to 2,000 feet south of the Norfolk Southern Railroad underpass. Construction on that leg of the project is expected to begin in early 2008.

Brown said preliminary engineering work is already being done on the next phase, which runs from south of the underpass to Alabama 157/Alternate 72.

Brown said right-of-way purchase continues in another major Shoals project, the first leg of the widening of U.S. 43 between U.S. 72 in Killen to the Alabama-Tennessee State Line.

Russ Corey can be reached at 740-5738 or russ.corey@timesdaily.com.