Photo: CBS 12
Officials from the Florida Department of Transportation say we may have a definitive answer as soon as Wednesday afternoon as to when a major construction closure is taking place in Palm Beach County.
FDOT's Patrick Kennedy tells County Commissioners why the work MUST be conducted on the CSX tracks at Northlake Boulevard and the Beeline Highway.
"The safety concerns are not necessarily for vehicular traffic, they're actually for the rail traffic. They've had concerns with, and even had Amtrak trains basically bottoming out in this roadway crossing. There's some differential sediment that's been causing issues there."
The closure is expected to impact about 70,000 drivers daily and it's expected to last eight days.
CSX had been looking at July 25th, but then said the newest tentative date would be August 1st. Kennedy add that CSX would be discussing whether to move the date back up to July 25th, even though it wouldn't give the public a full 3 weeks notice.
The concern is having the work completed and the roadway reopened before the start of school next month.
Kennedy made one thing clear...
"Of the utmost concern with this closure was allowing access for emergency and first responders and we can say with certainty that will be available 24/7."
CSX plans to start the work on a Friday evening, so that only one complete work week will be impacted.