During the morning rush hour Wednesday, southbound traffic on U.S. Highway 27 headed into downtown Chattanooga was flowing normally despite the new traffic pattern motorists are encountering this morning.
The Hamilton County 911 center’s online “Active Incident” board showed no traffic accidents in the work zone during efforts to open a new ramp from U.S. 27 to Fourth Street overnight.
Chattanooga police said there had been no accidents reported overnight or even for the last couple of days in the construction zone. Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatchers reported no incidents either.
At the top of the hour at 8 and 9 a.m., heavy traffic snarled atop the Olgiati Bridge, mostly from traffic entering the highway from onramps, but commuters seemed to cooperate as best they could.
Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman Jennifer Flynn said this morning that there had been no problems reported to the state agency either.
“Work went well and without incident,” Flynn said via email. “The new pattern is in place and people are getting used to it.”
But afternoon commuters will encounter a new traffic pattern, too.
“We anticipate some complaints this afternoon when people who normally use Fourth Street to access US-27 South discover they will have to use MLK Boulevard instead,” Flynn said.
Once commuters are used to the new patterns, “[a]ctually things might improve out there overall because the short loop ramp that had stop signs at the end is now closed,” she said. “There were probably a lot of rear end crashes at this location because drivers had to come to a stop, then move very fast to get onto US-27 South.”
Elsewhere, inbound traffic headed from Interstate 75 to Interstate 24 West was backed up and moving slowly as usual by 8:15 a.m. while traffic headed north and south on I-75 was moving normally. Just before 9 a.m., an incident was reported in the eastbound lanes near the McBrien Road overpass but it was cleared after a few minutes.
There were some disabled vehicles reported, two near the I-75/I-24 split and another at about the middle of the “Ridgecut” on the eastbound side of I-24 but none of them had any significant impact on traffic.
The work is part of a $143 million project aimed at widening and upgrading the thoroughfare that runs through downtown. The work is weather dependent. If the work gets delayed, it will be rescheduled for a later date.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.