Road to open this weekend: 3 Weeks Ahead of Schedule!
Crews are working on the final phase of the rockslide repairs on U.S. 129/State Route 115 in Blount County and plan to reopen the road completely this weekend, three weeks ahead of schedule.
Tennessee Department of Transportation emergency contractor Pacific Blasting & Demolition Ltd. finished with the scaling operations on the slide area the weekend of July 3 and 4. A total of 236 truckloads of rock were removed from the site over the course of a week. Installation of the wire mesh in the slide area was completed on Tuesday.
Workers will now focus on installing guardrail, paving and striping the roadway, weather permitting.
TDOT offered a $195,000 incentive to the contractor if the roadway opened by July 1, 2010. However, work on an unstable rock mass which began to slide on June 2 hindered the contractor from receiving the full incentive. Should Pacific Blasting & Demolition open the road on Friday July 9, the contractor will receive $136,500.
Up to date information on the U.S. 129 rockslide removal/stabilization project is available on the TDOT website at www.tn.gov/tdot/US129Rockslide/default.htm, where you can view a live camera feed of work ongoing at the site as well as video and photos from the project. To view videos of the project you can visit TDOT’s YouTube site at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TDOTnews .
Currently, U.S. 129/SR-115 is closed from just past the Foothills Parkway to the Tabcat Bridge. A short section of U.S. 129 between the Tabcat Bridge and the North Carolina state line, known as “The Dragon”, is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; however no through traffic is allowed at the rockslide site at any time. Detours remain in place to allow motorists to get around the rockslide repair area.For Live Rockslide Web Camera Click Here
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