The Ohio River “Cairo” Bridge will shut down for at least 30 days starting the week of August 3-9, which will result in an 82-mile detour for truck drivers traveling through Kentucky.

The bridge carries U.S. 51, U.S. 60, and U.S. 62 traffic across the Ohio River between Wickliffe, Kentucky, and Cairo, Illinois, at U.S. 51 Kentucky mile point 7.372, according to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC).

Crews will be making repairs to a 2-mile section of the Kentucky approach and to the bridge deck.

“By closing the bridge for 30 days,” said KYTC District 1 Chief Engineer Kyle Poat, “we speed up the construction process so we can get the bridge back to near-normal traffic flow sooner rather than later. Some of the options included overnight and weekend closures. Those options created numerous side issues for cross-country travelers, area businesses, truckers, and our daily commuters. The additional construction time would have extended the impact to traffic by 12 weeks.”

Approximately 7,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day. Thirty-five percent of those vehicles are trucks.