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3 Westbound Upper-Level Lanes To Close Overnight On GWB

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Three westbound lanes on the upper level of the George Washington Bridge will be closed Sunday night into Monday morning, as repair work on the bridge continues.

The three lanes closed at 9 p.m., and will remain closed until 5 a.m. Monday. The latest closures follow a shutdown of three lanes in both directions overnight Friday into Saturday, and Saturday into Sunday.

After Monday morning, repairs will be suspended until mid-January. Crews hope to complete the work by March.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the closures will allow crews to replace critical steel deck panels on the current deck, "significantly minimizing the chances of another emergency closure of the bridge during the holidays."

Emergency repairs have snarled traffic on the GWB at least three times in a month. The latest incident happened on Monday when crews were forced to replace a steel decking and joint plates.

Those repairs came less than a week after emergency repairs on the bridge closed outbound lanes.

The Port Authority says it wasn't prepared for the emergency closures last week. It was forced to perform an $82 million repair when cracks destabilized the span's upper roadway already ten years past its life span.

The agency said it has no alternative for diverting traffic, saying it would be structurally unsafe to move the median.

For more information, visit www.panynj.gov.

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