Weekend Detour For Highway 4

May 13, 2017

A big detour is set this weekend for Highway 4 in Century.

On Saturday and Sunday, State Road 4 is scheduled be closed from Highway 29 to Jefferson Avenue so that crews from CSX Railroad can reconstruct the Highway 4 rail crossing.  Highway 4 traffic, including commercial trucks, will be detoured around using Jefferson Avenue and Pond Street.

The crossing work is part of an overall project to resurface Highway 4 from Highway 29 to the Escambia River Bridge. Originally, plans called for traffic to use a temporary railroad crossing — called an onside diversion in technical terms — directly adjacent to the current crossing. But those plans did not work out.

“The onsite diversion depicted in the original plans did not allow CSX adequate room to perform the railroad upgrade, therefore an alternate detour for State Road 4 traffic was developed,” Tanya Branton, public information specialist for the Florida Department of Transportation, said.

Mayor Henry Hawkins acknowledged that citizens living on and near Jefferson Avenue and Pone Street will be inconvenienced by the detour through the neighborhood, but the decision was that of the state, not the town.  He said FDOT may temporarily widen some curves on Pond and Jefferson to allow for larger trucks.

Any damage to town streets will be repaired by FDOT or their contractor, Hawkins said.

Law enforcement will be on had along the detour route to help traffic flowing.

Pictured above and below: In March, Highway 4 was resurfaced near the railroad track and a temporary crossing was constructed. Now, CSX says the temporary crossing is inadequate. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.

Comments

One Response to “Weekend Detour For Highway 4”

  1. A on May 15th, 2017 10:13 am

    This was still closed this morning, so it will require a detour

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News