Final touches being made on Highway 84

After years of construction, the Highway 84 four-laning project from the Enterprise bypass to New Brockton is nearly complete.

According to Patrick Henderson, of the Alabama Department of Transportation, the finishing touches are being put on the project, including work at intersections, drainage areas and driveways.

“There’s still a lot of cleaning up and dressing up to do so we’re probably still looking at about two months to complete the project,” Henderson said.

The traffic shifted to the new lanes was on June 13 opening up all four lanes to the permanent traffic pattern, however, workers still have one westbound lane closed.

“Traffic seems to be flowing well,” Henderson said. “We encourage everyone to be extremely cautious out there because we’ve had it in a different traffic pattern for some time and sometimes old habits are hard to break. Someone could get on the wrong side of the road, so we just encourage everyone to be extremely careful in those areas.”

New Brockton police said they ran into a few issues when the road was originally opened on June 13 with residents unaware that the four-lane pattern had been opened.

Officers, along with the assistance of Alabama State Troopers, were posted at trouble areas to help direct traffic.

Some of the changes associated with the road also include two lanes turning left onto the Enterprise bypass as well as the turn onto Highway 51 being moved behind a gas station, rather than its former location in front.

The $11.4 million project began in July 2011 and had a target completion date of May 2014.

Henderson said due to a small expansion of the project that included the repaving of the existing road, contractors were on schedule with the project.

“This project has been a little different than most because originally this project did not include all the paving between Enterprise and New Brockton, but the money became available and this felt like the quickest way to finish this section of roadway and have it completed, so the project was actually expanded using the same pay quantities that were set up,” Henderson said. “There wasn’t really a set time in the contract that included all that extra work, so (contractors) will be granted extra time for the additional work that was added to this contract. In receiving that time then they will probably be within their limits for construction.”

The end goal of the project is to see the four-laning of Highway 84 across the entire state.

“The next section that is scheduled to be let for construction is from the end of the Elba bypass where it hits Alabama 125, from there back across the river and tying back into (Highway 84) on the east side of Elba,” Henderson said.

That project is scheduled to be let in November, he said.

“This will be a total new roadway,” he said. “The Elba bypass goes on the north side of Elba, but it doesn’t come all the way around. This will extend that bypass coming around, crossing the Pea River and tying back into (Highway 84 near National Security).”

Henderson said the next project would be tying that project into another project under construction on the west side of Elba, before moving onto the four-laning from Elba to New Brockton in 2016.

The completion of all four projects is estimated to be by 2018.

“If the money holds out, that’s what we’re shooting for,” he said.