Image provided courtesy Orange County Transportation Authority

10:45am | Construction on local freeways that will lead to the closure of the heavily-used 7th Street Bridge in Long Beach will likely begin around October, say representatives from the Orange County Transportation Authority.

When construction on that bridge—to ease congestion by creating a new lane—begins, the closure will take northbound 405 Freeway drivers on a detour to exit either at Seal Beach Boulevard (before the bridge) or at Palo Verde (after the bridge). An lbpost.com article earlier this week incorrectly stated that the main detours would be Seal Beach Boulevard and Woodruff Ave. That article has been corrected.

The bridge construction is part of the larger West County Connectors project that will ease congestion and improve road conditions on the 22, 405 and 605 Freeways and provide more than 5,000 jobs over the next four years, according to the project web site.

Construction on the east segment of the project is expected to begin in late July or August. The west segment—including the 7th Street bridge—will be bid out to contractors in Juy and awarded in August, with construction beginning sometime this fall around October. Dates for bridge closure have not yet been announced, but parts of the 7th Street Bridge will be closed for one year during construction.

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