OAK PARK (WWJ) -- Westbound 696 between I-75 and M-10 reopened this weekend ahead of schedule.
The stretch of freeway, which was supposed to be closed until the morning of Monday, May 19, reopened Saturday afternoon, May 17, around 4:30 p.m.
It had been closed for over a week to allow crews to demolish the Church Street Plaza Bridge.
“We are thrilled to be able to give this news because so often the information we share has a negative impact on drivers,” Michigan Department of Transportation's (MDOT) Diane Cross said live on WWJ.
According to Cross, crews also took advantage of this time to patch up parts of the road — but the bridge demolition was their biggest task.
“It’s definitely been a nonstop, eight days of working on it (the bridge) to get it down and cleaned up,” Cross said. “Because once you drop it down to the freeway, you also have to clean all of that debris and concrete up and make sure there was no damage done to the roadway, which I’m happy to say did not happen.”
She said the closure of WB I-696 impacted close to 100,000 drivers at peak hours.
The eastbound side of the Church Street Plaza Bridge is slated to come down in a “couple of days,” Cross said, but it will not result in additional closures.
An eight-mile stretch of eastbound 696— from Lahser Road in Southfield to I-75 in Royal Oak (including all on and off-ramps)— is scheduled to remain closed until fall of 2026. This is all apart of the multi-phase, "Restore The Reuther" project.