JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Drivers should prepare for brief afternoon delays near the Shands Bridge this week as construction crews begin receiving massive bridge beams for the next phase of the project. <\/p>\n
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) announced that deliveries of very large bridge beams will arrive daily from Monday through Friday. The beams, which range from 86 to 114 feet in length, are being trucked in from Tampa to construct the next three spans of the new Shands Bridge. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Locals we spoke with say they don\u2019t mind the delay as they patiently wait for the new bridge <\/p>\n \u201cThe noise they make when they\u2019re driving those posts in the ground is kind of annoying, but other than that, I\u2019m happy to see it,\u201d said local Mac Mizell. <\/p>\n According to Sara Pleasants, a Community Outreach Specialist for FDOT, approximately five beams will arrive each day. <\/p>\n To safely guide the massive trucks into the construction site off State Road 16, crews will temporarily halt traffic near the State Road 13 intersection. The stoppages are required to allow the oversized trucks to turn against the normal flow of traffic to negotiate the tight intersection. <\/p>\n \u201cWe expect the stops to be very brief, you know, maybe between 5 and 15 minutes, just long enough to get the span through that turn,\u201d Pleasants said. \u201cThen they\u2019ll reopen everything and traffic will be good to go.\u201d <\/p>\n Due to transit restrictions, the trucks cannot leave Tampa until 9:00 a.m., making exact arrival times unpredictable. However, FDOT estimates the deliveries will reach the local intersection daily between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. <\/p>\n While the existing bridge will remain open, transportation officials advise commuters to plan. Drivers who have time-sensitive afternoon commitments are encouraged to seek alternate routes or add an extra 15 to 30 minutes to their travel time. <\/p>\n \u201cWe do apologize for the inconvenience,\u201d Pleasants said, noting that the temporary disruptions are a necessary step forward for the long-term benefits of the new bridge structure. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Drivers should prepare for brief afternoon delays near the Shands Bridge this week as construction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,9481,2345,14365,969,116,118,117,6489,634,12856,58319,70778,14360,135],"class_list":["post-400013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-clay_county","tag-fdot","tag-florida_department_of_transportation","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jessica_salinas","tag-local","tag-saint_johns_county","tag-shands_bridge","tag-state_road_13","tag-state_road_16","tag-tampa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}