(WWJ) Drivers who use westbound I-696 in Oakland County will have to find a detour for the next ten days. The Michigan Department of Transportation is closing the westbound lanes from I-75 to M-10 starting at 9 p.m. Friday.
Officials say the closure is needed to give workers time to demolish the Church Street Plaza bridge as well as 170 concrete beams and clean up debris.
"Remember when it was just a one lane street, we had a parking lot, a ball field, a playground, it's massive," MDOT spokeswoman Diane Cross told WWJ's Mike Campbell. "It's quite thick as well and it's the long tunnel that you drive under that you see the icicles in the winter, but you won't anymore."
During the closure, all westbound traffic will be detoured to southbound I-75, westbound M-8, the Davison Freeway, and northbound M-10, the Lodge Freeway, to get back to westbound I-696.
Cross says there will be a local westbound lane with access to Bermuda Street, Woodward Avenue and Coolidge Highway.
Westbound I-696 is expected to reopen at 5 a.m. Monday, May 19.