CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Nueces River Bridge construction near Labonte Park has hit a milestone as it enters its third and final phase.
Crews began the demolition of the last piece of the existing structure.
A driver reached out through our TELL 3 tip line about what appeared to be a crack that ran straight through the roadway.
TxDOT's Corpus Christi-area engineer Ernest Longoria said they are aware of it and that it's only cosmetic, and it's something they anticipated to happen as they continue construction.
"Over time, there's stresses that are incurring on a structure, thermal stresses actually," Longoria said. "And so this crack began to develop about a year ago and we knew about it. And so, the plan has always been to address it, but it's really, really, nothing structurally related. There's no structural deficiency, nothing really alarming."
He said the plan was to always come back and create the center joint, and at the end of the project you'll see two stand alone bridges.
"What the public will see is a clean separation, we call it a joint, but it'll be a clean separation between the southbound bridge and the northbound bridge right where that, that crack is at," Longoria said.
The improvements to I-37 are taking place between Redbird Lane to the US Highway 77 interchange. About 45,000 vehicles travel this section each day.
The $85.7-million-project aims to improve safety by widening the I-37 main lanes.
Longoria explained what drivers can expect to see next.
"During the night, our contractors still moving barrier around to get to jump into the last phase," he said. "They actually just started the demolition of the existing structure, the last piece of that structure today actually. So, it'll be a mixture of demolition and then the new bridge getting constructed. And typically the demolition comes first, we got to get that piece out of the way first, and so that'll be about six weeks what we're estimating,"
Longoria said there will be a new northbound exit ramp to Labonte Park.
If you haven't been in that direction in a while, it can be a little confusing. It took 3NEWS a couple of attempts to figure it all out.
If you are coming from Corpus Christi, exit early at Redbird Lane and stay on that access road.
If you are coming from the opposite direction, follow the sign over Labonte Park and eventually make a u-turn.
A quick check with DPS shows there have been just over 30 crashes in that area of the interchange since January.
The most common causes of those accidents were because of changing lanes when unsafe to do so and unsafe speed.
Meantime TxDOT said there are a lot of moving parts with the project and officials encourage folks to watch for signage.
The project is ahead of schedule and they expect a summer of 2025 completion.