M20 crash bridge work will bring months of delays
Motorists face five months of motorway delays, lane closures and 50mph speed limits as work to replace the collapsed M20 footbridge are revealed.
The East Street footbridge over the motorway at Addington was struck by a lorry carrying a digger between Junctions 4, for Leybourne, and 3, for Borough Green and the M26.
Around £1.5m of damage was caused on August 27 last year and Highways England has now given the green light for a replacement pedestrian bridge to be installed.
The crash, on bank holiday Saturday, brought 170 tonnes of concrete onto the London-bound carriageway when the route was being used by millions of drivers.
Motorcyclist Jim Shaw, 73, escaped with minor injuries after skidding sideways at 70mph beneath the falling debris on the motorway, which also crushed two lorries, a Hitachi excavator and a lorry and trailer, both worth £150,000. Work is expected to begin on a new bridge at the end of October and is estimated to be completed by March 31, 2018.
Alan Austen, from Darlington, was charged with one count of dangerous driving and another count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and will stand trial at Maidstone Crown Court in February having denied both.
The new bridge covers the same footprint as the old one and some of the foundations will be re-used. Contractors A-one+ will implement lane closures and round-the-clock speed restrictions of 50mph along with closures of hard shoulders and slip roads.
Closures planned include lane one from the M26 onto the M20 on the coast-bound carriageway and the hard shoulder of the M20 London-bound and coast-bound from J4 to J2.
Highways England says work will mainly be carried out during the day.
When the new bridge is lifted into place, full overnight closures will be needed.
When these happen diversions from the M20 coastbound and London-bound will be in place between J2 (Wrotham) and J4 (Leybourne) and involve the A20 and A228. London-bound drivers wanting the M26 will also use this route.
Traffic on the M26 towards the M20 will be diverted off at the J2a (Borough Green) sliproad before following the diversions above.
A temporary 50mph limit on the M20 between junctions 3 and 4 had been in place from March 2016 until February last year so the bridge over J4 could be widened to handle more traffic.