Stickney Point Bridge lane closures coming next week

Next week, the Florida Department of Transportation will start daily intermittent lane closures on the Stickney Point Bridge at south Siesta Key.

Contractors will close one lane in a single direction at a time from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while painting the bridge span, said the project’s public information officer Lauren Hatchell. The closure will continue throughout the next several weeks.

“Originally they had tried to do the work at night, but they were running into some issues with weather — specifically the humidity,” Hatchell said.

FDOT is finishing up a $5.3 million rehabilitation project, which contractors were supposed to finish at the beginning of the year. But, the original timeline did not include an allotment for testing the new machinery and electronics.

“It all has to go through fairly extensive testing,” Hatchell said. “So we had to build it back into the contract.”