Ballard County 911 reports a major traffic snarl in the Wickliffe area due to work to establish an extended work zone on the U.S. 51 Ohio River “Cairo” Bridge and the Kentucky approach levee.
This 5-mile section of U.S. 51 between Wickliffe, KY, and Cairo, IL, has two work zones with extended areas of one lane traffic controlled by an automated signal. Some of the backup may be due to work to install sections of a barrier wall for work on the bridge deck.
At this time, the contractor is pulling down the work zones and restoring normal 2-way traffic as quickly as possible.
It may take an hour or two for the traffic backup to clear.
According to some reports it took almost an hour to travel 4 miles from Wickliffe across the bridge into Illinois.
KYTC engineers will be meeting with the contractor on Tuesday morning to work on a revised traffic plan for the project.