Albany Ward 4 Commissioner Chad Warbington speaks on Oglethorpe Bridge project

ALBANY, Ga. – After multiple years of planning, the City of Albany and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) now have a timeline for a major project downtown.

CBS 44’s Brian Roche has more.

Thousands of cars pass over the Oglethorpe Bridge everyday, but just below it, things are starting to move forward as crews are clearing a space to start working on the new bridge.

Ward 4 Commissioner, Chad Warbington met with us to discuss the newly announced timeline to replace the decades-old bridge…

And… it started with planning crews back in January.

“…And, now, they’ve started taking down trees on either side. So, they’re really doing all their pre-work. And, so, what they’re telling us is July, August is when the plans are for the demolition to begin on the bridge,” said Chad Warbington, Ward 4 Commissioner, City of Albany.

The new bridge is planned to be more accessible beyond the current four lane structure.

For the time being though, the project will cause some traffic problems in downtown Albany once work gets underway.

“It’s going to be a major inconvenience. I mean, you just have to be transparent and honest. You know, any time you do a project where a four lane bridge is going to be demolished and taken out of service, all that traffic is going to be diverted on Broad Avenue, which is a two lane bridge, as well as the DOT (Department of Transportation) is going to have a lot of detour signs on the perimeter of Albany,” said Warbington.

Since the Oglethorpe Bridge is a project at the state level with the Department of Transportation, and they’re working with the city to try and minimize congestion.

“And, the DOT is going to have all the signs they can have out to really try to encourage folks to avoid this intersection. So, for us locally, that may mean that we might need to jump down to Oak Ridge and take that bridge or jump on the bypass, you know, so we’re going to have to kind of modify our own travel habits, even here locally,” said Warbington.

While the project will cause headaches starting this summer, Commissioner Warbington is optimistic over the final result.

“So, it’s going to be a lot of amenities on the bridge other than just, you know, fixing an outdated piece of infrastructure. It’s going to be modern. It’s going to be a lot more safe. It’s going to be more pedestrian-friendly than the bridge we have right now,” said Warbington.

Commissioner Warbington says they’re hoping to have the bridge open for traffic by early 2027.

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