I-89 northbound to close overnight Friday

June 2, 2022  |  By Waterbury Roundabout 

State highway crews are working day and night to repair a section of Interstate 89 south of the Richmond exit where a sinkhole has formed. Photo courtesy Vt. Agency of Transportation

The Vermont Agency of Transportation announced Thursday morning that it will close both northbound lanes of Interstate 89 between Waterbury Exit 10 and Richmond Exit 11 from 10 p.m. Friday, June 3, to 6 a.m. Saturday, June 4.

The closure will help expedite the construction of crossovers that will divert traffic off the southbound lanes where a sinkhole has formed due to deterioration of an aging culvert, the agency said. 

The project is expected to take months to fix, an agency spokeswoman said.

During the closure, a signed detour will be in place routing traffic to U.S. Route 2 between Waterbury and Richmond. The 13-mile detour is expected to add 10 minutes of travel time due to the lower speed limit on U.S. 2. 

Traffic delays are not anticipated given the volume of traffic typically traveling on I-89 at that location during the night.

The completed crossover will move southbound traffic across the median and onto the northbound left lane for about a mile. Northbound traffic will be reduced to the right lane in this stretch.

The project became necessary after AOT maintenance crews and highway engineers recently detected a sinkhole in the southbound shoulder south of the Richmond exit. Deterioration of the culvert 50 feet below the surface is causing soil to migrate beneath the roadway.

Project engineers say the work will take months to complete. Agency spokeswoman Amy Tatko said the $10 million project is expected to be finished by the end of October. Funding is available from agency reserves. “The transportation budget is designed to accommodate projects such as this, as sometimes infrastructure needs attention sooner than our previous monitoring has indicated,” Tatko said.