Year in Preview: Oxmoor construction

Drivers could see orange barrels appear around the Oxmoor Boulevard “turkey foot” by the end of the year.

City Senior Planner Vanessa McGrath said she expects the project to be bid out in summer or fall 2016, which makes construction likely to begin in the fall or winter.

“The projects are designed,” McGrath said. “We have to wait for approval from ALDOT to be able to start.”

The project includes several components: new east and westbound lanes on Oxmoor Boulevard, changes to the I-65 ramps and adding left turn lanes at Scott Street, two places on Vulcan Road, both sides of the Columbiana Road/Palisades Boulevard intersection and on Oxmoor Boulevard at the Green Springs/Oxmoor Road/Palisades intersection.

Additionally, the city will remove two traffic signals on the east end of Oxmoor Road and at Cobb Street, while also eliminating left turns from Cobb Street to Oxmoor Boulevard.

Since there are so many different components, McGrath said it will take at least a year of construction before the project is complete. Once complete, the Oxmoor improvements are expected to simplify traffic flow by reducing the number of lane shifts made while traveling through the area.

“There’s a lot of steps to that one,” McGrath said of the construction process.