ALDOT announces changes to improve traffic at Southside bridge

The Alabama Department of Transportation has announced a major project to redesign the old southside bridge on Alabama highway 77 that crosses the Coosa river.   The proposal includes a redesign that does away with the one lane of traffic from Southside to Rainbow City to create two lanes across the old bridge.  The bottleneck is created when going from two lanes to one and then back to two.  The highway will be changed to two lanes in Southside, continue through the traffic light at the Fowlers Ferry Road intersection, across the bridge and continue with two lanes on the north side of the bridge. The bridge is wide enough to create two 10-foot lanes.

The left lane on the Rainbow City side currently has stobs to block the traffic, but those will be removed. A merge lane from Whorton Bend Road to northbound Alabama Highway 77 will be added, and the two lanes coming off the bridge will remain as two lanes going up the hill into Rainbow City.