ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Drivers looking to cross to and from Clay and St. Johns County will need another way to do so.
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The Shands Bridge will be closed this weekend for repairs, causing major headaches for drivers.
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For drivers who cross the bridge regularly, it doesn’t take more than five minutes, usually. Now, just to get across you’re looking at roughly an hour of a drive. If your hitting the road this weekend and intend to cross from Clay to St. Johns County, you might want to plan ahead.
A few minutes is going to turn into a lot longer over the weekend.
Related Story: Shands Bridge to close for three consecutive weekends starting Jan. 26
The Florida Department of Transportation is shutting down the Shands Bridge for a grating replacement so detours like this are going to be in place.
“That’s gonna be another hour out of my time, that’s gonna be rough,” one person who takes the bridge said.
Drivers will now have to use the Buckman Bridge to go from Clay to St. Johns County and vice versa.
Action News Jax decided to see just how long it would take to compare the drive times and started on the Clay County side. We decided to see what it would take to get to Woodpeckers BBQ restaurant for dinner.
Driving the detour by going up through U.S. 17 over the Buckman Bridge and eventually down State Road 13 to get to the locally owned restaurant took 56 minutes.
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The drive directly over the Shands Bridge took just about five minutes.
Hampton Ray with the Florida Department of Transportation said they don’t like inconveniencing people but said the bridge work has to be done for safety.
“So currently, there’s actually metal plates over portions of the grating that’s not satisfactory, it doesn’t meet our safety standards,” Ray said. “If we were not to complete this safety issue it would leave people open to safety concerns, flat tires, things like that, or even worse as it related to the deterioration of the grating.”
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For drivers like Larry Janney, who lives in Clay County and works in both Duval and St. Johns County, he knows what he has to do.
“Leave earlier.”
While driving the detour, traffic wasn’t that bad and it still took 56 minutes so you’re going to want to plan ahead and give yourself extra time depending on where exactly you need to go.
The spokesperson with FDOT said the Shands Bridge will also be closed for the next two weekends as well. The new grating will last until the new Shands Bridge is constructed which is expected to be completed by 2030.
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