ALDOT provides update on ongoing 4-year Highway 181 project

BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. (WALA) - ALDOT provides an update on a four-year-long Baldwin County road project that seemingly has no end.

Drivers and nearby businesses have endured years of construction work along Highway 181 to widen the road to four lanes.

ALDOT expected to have the project finished in December.

“Here we are January 9, 2023 and it’s still not done. And it’s very frustrating specifically to the business owners in this stretch,” one nearby business owner said.

Like many other business owners along a stretch of Highway 181, Ashley Valentz has seen the same view for the the last four years.

Valentz is the owner of CC Automotive Solutions.

Her business is situated right beside the road construction that will widen a portion of Highway 181 to four lanes from County Road 64 down to Highway 104.

Valnetz says the continued construction has impacted their business.

“We have no visibility to the road we’re a car dealership and we have no visibility for drive-by traffic and no way to get in and out of our car lot,” Valnetz said.

James Gordon with ALDOT says weather has played a factor in the project’s completion.

“The hope was to have had this done by the week of Christmas but then came the cold weather and asphalt paving has to be done at 60 degrees or higher, and there were some delays in that sense,” Gordon said.

Gordon says the contractors are still within their timeframe to have the project completed.

Gordon hopes traffic can open up to drivers within the next 30 days or so and to have the overall project completed within the next three months.

This is news that Valentz and many others in Baldwin county can’t wait to hear.

“That’s what we said in my last interview so I’ll believe it when I see it,” Valenz said.

This $19.2 million project was made possible with funds from the BP Restore Act.

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