Red River Street closedPhoto by Graphic by Ethan Hill

A section of Red River Street in The University of Texas campus closed down April 14 as part of a road realignment project. Northbound traffic will be diverted to Trinity Street, while southbound traffic will use the I-35 feeder road as a detour.

Construction on UT medical school to divert traffic through 2014

Update (4/14/14 11:35 a.m.): UT officials said weather delays could delay the closure until 9 a.m. April 15. The street must be dry to allow restriping of 15th Street to occur.

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Red River Street will move to its original footprint as part of a realignment project underway on The University of Texas campus.

A portion of Red River Street from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to 15th Street closed April 14 to help make way for the new UT medical school. The road will remain closed through the end of 2014, causing northbound traffic to rely on Trinity Street as a detour, and southbound drivers must use the I-35 frontage road, said Bob Rawski, regional program manager with the UT system office of utilities.

"As a part of our review and approval process, we completed a traffic impact analysis," Rawski said. "The impact analysis did not indicate there would be a significant impact [on the detour routes] from that increased traffic."

The project returns that portion of Red River Street to its original alignment from when the city grid was first developed, he said. The road was relocated in the 1970s from its original north-south alignment, Rawski said.

"If the road had continued south, it would go through the emergency dropoff at Brackenridge," he said.

Moving the roadway requires construction crews to relocate many underground utilities in the area. Fifteenth Street, Trinity Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard will all have some lanes closed during the Red River Street realignment, Rawski said. Lane closures will be strategically timed to minimize traffic impacts, he said.

"The other roads we hope to incrementally return to full service as we go along—assuming there are no unforeseen conditions," he said.

The first phase of the medical school project will be complete by mid-2016 as scheduled, Rawski said.