Are More Bridges In Amarillo Going To Be Closed? Yes, Here’s Why.

Over the weekend, things got a bit difficult when it came to moving around on Washington St. Construction crews were out there doing some bridge work and had the entire intersection closed down.

Detours all over the place in a very high traffic area, and on a weekend no less. It created a lot of aggravation for people that needed to travel through that area, and made it tougher for some businesses to be accessible.

As of this morning, Nov. 6 it was back open for business and traffic was flowing freely. However, it begs the question, why did they have to close it down in the first place and what were they working on?

Long story short, Amarillo sees a lot of semi trucks and large vehicles that travel on those bridges and overpasses. Over time, because of the weight load, the bridges start to wear down and it becomes unsafe for vehicles to travel on.

The bridges could collapse, pieces could begin to fall off and hit cars underneath the bridge at a high rate of speed. Repairing and strengthening the Washington bridge was just the first step in making the roads of Amarillo safer.

You will begin to see other bridges in the area shut down over time for the same reason. It's all about making sure the bridges in Amarillo remain strong and don't have something catastrophic happen. I'm fine with them shutting things down for that reason.

TxDOT has a timeline for when all these projects will be done and will give plenty of fair warning beforehand. Yes, it'll affect how you move around the area for a couple of days, but ultimately it's so we don't have bigger projects due to tragedy down the road.