On Wednesday morning, a wreath will fall into the Arkansas River from the Broadway Bridge to mark the end of the 93-year-old span's life.
Shortly after, the bridge will close to the 25,000 vehicles that cross it each day.
And a new kind of rush hour will start that afternoon -- for drivers and for the company that is building the bridge's replacement.
In anticipation, changes to traffic signals, signs and flow have been made in both downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
The idea is to push as much traffic as possible south in the morning and north in the afternoon.
"Be patient," Ronny Loe of Little Rock's Public Works Department advised commuters.
Danny Straessle of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department advised motorists to find alternate routes across the river now.
"Do not wait until the bridge closes," he said.
Closure of the bridge puts the project into its six-month stretch run. The contractor, Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., has 180 days from Saturday to take down the old and build up the new. Massman will be assessed an $80,000 penalty for each day it goes over; it gets an $80,000 bonus for each day sooner.
The cost of the project is $98.4 million. At the time the highway contract was awarded, it was the state's biggest, but it has since been surpassed by a project to improve Interstate 49 in Northwest Arkansas.
Much of the Broadway Bridge's traffic is expected to move to the Main Street bridge, which flows vehicles south from Maple Street in North Little Rock and north from Scott Street in Little Rock. That bridge has a daily traffic count of about 12,000.
Several changes have been, or will be, made by Wednesday.
• Scott Street between Capitol and Sixth Street is now two-way. Scott had been two-way from the bridge to Capitol, or Fifth Street. Scott now has two lanes north and one lane south from Capitol to Sixth, where drivers must turn right toward the state Capitol and the state office buildings around it.
• Traffic headed north on Scott won't be allowed to turn left onto East Markham Street in front of the Statehouse Convention Center. And traffic headed south off the Main Street Bridge won't be allowed to turn left onto East Markham.
• A left-turn arrow has been added for traffic turning north from West Third Street onto Scott.
• At West Fourth and Scott, the middle lane will be dedicated to a left turn north onto Scott. The left of the three lanes of the one-way street is already left turn only.
• Morning and afternoon rush hour trolley service will be suspended for the duration of the bridge closure. That precludes the trolleys from blocking traffic at the south end of the Main Street Bridge and in downtown North Little Rock.
• Traffic lights on Little Rock's Scott Street and Main Street in downtown North Little Rock will go from a 70-second cycle to a 90-second cycle in favor of north-south traffic. This cycle will occur from 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m.
• Rock Region Metro, which runs the bus system, is making an effort to inform North Little Rock residents of its service. Details are available at www.rrmetro.org. The bus company has already switched five North Little Rock routes from the Broadway Bridge to the Main Street Bridge.
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• Rock Region will run a streetcar shuttle over the Main Street bridge, from the Verizon station to the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce station from 7 to 9 a.m., and from 3:45 to 6:30 p.m. for people who work or live in Argenta and downtown Little Rock, or people who park and want to ride. The schedule will be evaluated as time goes by.
Once the bridge is closed, the contractor will immediately begin to take the asphalt off the roadway, Straessle said. Doing so meets a requirement of the Army Corps of Engineers that no oil-based products go into the river. Milling of the asphalt will take two days.
Many people have asked about taking a piece of the bridge balustrades for souvenirs, but those requests won't be honored because of the tight schedule, Straessle said. He was unsure of the plan to dispose of the bridge's parts.
Some will end up in the river, he said, but nothing can be left that's essentially larger than a bowling ball. The navigation channel, he said, must also be cleared out.
Straessle said residents can expect nonstop, around-the-clock construction, Sundays and holidays included.
By mid-October, explosive charges are expected to take down the main arch. A few weeks after that, charges will take down the spandrel concrete arches on the north side.
By November, the new arches that now dominate the river's north shore will be floated by barge and placed on the new concrete supports.
The old bridge was dedicated to soldiers of The Great War -- World War I -- when it opened in 1923, said Cozetta Jones, communications director for Pulaski County.
A decommissioning ceremony will include a color guard, singing of the national anthem, and remarks by several dignitaries.
People will be allowed to park on the bridge, she said, but by 12:30 p.m. everyone must clear out so the bridge can be closed.
A Section on 09/26/2016