Two segments of Halls Ferry Road will be reduced to one lane for maintenance of the concrete surface beginning Wednesday morning, Public Works Director Bubba Rainer said Monday.

A strip of Halls Ferry less than a block long near the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center will be worked on first, said Rainer, and should be finished by Wednesday afternoon. The city’s street department will then move to another small, but more congested stretch of the roadway between the Confederate Avenue overpass and Monument Place.

“It’s going to be very tight there, and if motorists can possibly detour around it they should,” said Rainer. “They’ll be there beginning Wednesday afternoon and we’re hoping to have the work complete by Friday afternoon so we don’t have the one-way situation over the weekend.”

Traffic to and from downtown has increased on Halls Ferry since the January 2009 closure of the bridge at Washington and Clark streets. The street department will be working to smooth out bumps and fill in potholes on Halls Ferry that have increasingly drawn complaints from residents, Rainer said.

“These repairs have been needed for several years, and we’ve put it off as long as we have because it’s such a deterrent to traffic and it will create so many headaches,” Rainer said. “The timing could be better, but the work really can’t wait any longer.”

The detour around the closed bridge at Washington and Clark streets takes motorists around City Park via Lee Street, Army Navy Drive and North Frontage Road. It has caused congestion during high traffic hours, and business owners along Washington Street have also said it’s reducing tourist traffic and causing declining sales.

North of downtown, Washington Street has also been closed from Jackson to Main streets since March 26 due to a land shift that put a major water main in jeopardy. Work to re-route the water main one block around the land shift via Main, Walnut and Jackson streets is ongoing and expected to be complete by the end of the month. Until then, additional closures around the work are expected.