The Route 220 safety corridor project, spanning from the Fourth Street interchange in Williamsport to Route 287 in Jersey Shore, has been in the works for years. Finally, it has a projected start date.

The $37.6 million project is expected to be bid this summer and begin in earnest in October, Chris King, of the state Department of Transportation’s District 3, told the Williamsport Area Transportation Study Coordinating Committee on Monday.

“So we would have some activity this fall, then basically April to November of the next three years,” he said.

“Because the project has so many different points of focus, the construction staging is complicated, to say the least,” he added, explaining the need for a long construction timeframe. “The work’s being done in stages to limit lane closures, and the bridge work over Larry’s Creek and Quenshukeny Run also has to be completed in stages.”

In addition to constructing new bridges over Larry’s Creek and Quenshukeny Run, the project includes eliminating u-turns, some median openings and reducing redundant access points. U-turns will be added in safer locations and jug handles will be constructed to limit the number of left turns and crossing movements from side roads.

The decisions are based on an access management study, performed in advance of the project, King said.

“Generally, the project will proceed like this: We’ll place temporary pavement to allow two lanes in each direction. We’re going to construct the accelerate lanes, the jug handles, cul de sacs and also the bridge over Quenshukeny Run,” he said. “Then we’ll construct u-turns at Larry’s Creek and near the former school, along with a one-way service road in east Linden. We’ll build turn lanes in the median … jug handle on Glosser Road … then, finally, we’ll construct the northbound portion of those bridges.”

The biggest goal during construction is to keep traffic flowing, said Sandra Toska, PennDOT District 3 executive and chairperson of the coordinating committee.

“We made a concentrated effort on trying to maintain two lanes in both directions as much as possible,” she said.