A portion of U.S. 701 south, at the Garland Highway Bridge, will be closed beginning Monday, March 4, as Department of Transportation crews work to update the structure’s pilings.

The closure will be effective beginning at 8 a.m. March 4, with the area scheduled to reopen at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 28.

“We are overcompensating on the time it will likely take, just in case we run into some problems we have anticipated,” said Shannon Baylor, bridge maintenance supervisor for Sampson and Duplin counties.

Baylor said crews would be doing super structure work to the existing pilings on the bridge.

“We are going to be replacing some deterioration on those pilings,” Baylor said. “Hopefully, it’s not going to take as long as we have scheduled, but we won’t know until we get there and start working on it.”

Trevor Carroll, DOT bridge maintenance engineer, said the bridge pilings are made of wood and usually begin to deteriorate after a number of years and wear and tear.

“Since this is a primary road, we are doing a little more than we normally would. In most cases, we usually replace the wood pilings with more wood, but placing it in a concrete sleeve.With this bridge, we are doing a little more because it is such a heavy traveled area. We are going to put in new steel pilings, taking the load off the existing pilings.”

Cost of the repairs, Carroll said, was estimated at $30,000.

The work is part of the DOT’s Transportation Improvement Plan for 2013.

The bridge, Carroll said, had been worked on in September 2012, but a section of rusted beams was replaced at that time.

“This is a little more extensive,” Carroll said of the piling work. “It’s something we need to do as a part of our bridge maintenance.”

Since crews will be replacing parts of the bridge’s substructure, it will require the closure of both the northbound and southbound lanes of that portion of U.S. 701, which is located .7 miles north of Norris Road near Garland.

While the road is closed, DOT officials said, motorists can use the following signed detour:

From U.S. 701 South/Garland Highway:

Turn left onto Old U.S. 701;

Left onto Lisbon Bridge Road;

Right onto N.C. 411; and

Return to U.S. 701/Garland Highway.

“We hope to have the repairs done ahead of schedule, but we like to give ourselves plenty of time, just in case,” Baylor said.

For real-time travel information at any time, call 511, visit www.ncdot.gov/travel or follow NCDOT on Twitter at www.ncdot.gov/travel/twitter. Another option is NCDOT Mobile, a phone-friendly version of the NCDOT website. To access it, type “m.ncdot.gov” into the browser of your smartphone. Then, bookmark it to save for future reference. NCDOT Mobile is compatible with the iPhone, Android and some newer Blackberry phones.