BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Tuesday marked the partial closure of the intersection at Montclair Road and Memory Lane in Birmingham, impacting drivers for at least five days.
The closure comes as Jefferson County completes work on aging sewer lines in Mountain Brook. Almost 13,000 feet of old pipes are being replaced and upsized, which will cost up to $13.8 million.
Eastbound traffic on Montclair Road will be detoured southbound on Memory Lane. One lane of Montclair Road will remain open for westbound traffic flow to downtown Birmingham.
Traffic coming down the hill on Morningside Drive will have to turn right onto Montclair Road. There will not be any access to Montclair Road from Memory Lane.
According to the City of Mountain Brook, roughly 45,000 vehicles drive on the road every day. City Manager Sam Gaston expects the road work to have a major effect on the traffic.
“We’re doing all we can to notify the residents and the motorists of this change,” Gaston said.
Some drivers were impacted before the barriers were even put into place. Alesia Edwards is already looking at an alternative route to get to work.
“It’s great they’re trying to replace the sewer line,” Edwards said.
“It’s going to be over soon enough and then we’ll have good sewer lines which we all need,” Crestline Village resident Margaret Traylor said.
Matt Alpaugh, chief engineer for Jefferson County, is overseeing the sewer line replacement project. He says the work is part of a much larger project designed to eliminate 17 locations of sanitary sewer overflows in Mountain Brook.