Airport Drive/I-64 project underway

Preliminary site work is underway at the interchange of I-64 and Airport Drive in Eastern Henrico, as Virginia Department of Transportation crews prepare to replace the interstate's bridges and make other changes that will take several years.

The bridges have reached the end of their life cycle, according to VDOT spokesman Bob Spieldenner. Their replacements will be built slightly higher, to allow more clearance room for trucks on Airport Drive.

The project also will change the way drivers access Airport Drive from I-64.

The interchange currently uses a cloverleaf design so that traffic entering and exiting the interstate must merge in four spots. But this project will eliminate the two loops that carry traffic from I-64 to Airport Drive:

The loop that carries westbound traffic on I-64 to southbound Airport Drive and the loop that carries eastbound traffic on I-64 to northbound Airport Drive both will be removed.

In their place, crews will add traffic signals at the end of existing exit ramps to allow travelers to head north or south on Airport Drive from both of those points, Spieldenner said.

"Our traffic engineers took a look at the intersection and at different models to move traffic through there," he said.

The change, they concluded, would allow traffic to flow more easily since it no longer will become crowded at tighter-than-average merge points, he said.

Though initial work at the site is underway, it will be several months before more significant work begins, according to Spieldenner.

Crews haven't yet determined which I-64 bridge over Airport Drive they will demolish first, he said. Once that happens, traffic in both directions will be shifted to allow the construction of a new bridge, and then later shifted to that bridge to allow the demolition of the other.

The project is expected to conclude sometime in late 2022.