The replacement of a bridge on Dallas Avenue near Memorial Stadium will be postponed this summer. 

Selma Mayor George Evans announced at a January city council meeting the bridge project would shut down the portion of Dallas Avenue by the Selma Country Club for an estimated three months for a bridge replacement project conducted by the Alabama Department of Transportation.

Tuesday, Rebecca Lee White, spokesperson for ALDOT, said the Valley Creek bridge project’s letting, “has been postponed until May.”

It was previously scheduled for letting in April, meaning construction was estimated to begin in June. Now with the delay of the letting, the start date of the project and the closing of Dallas Avenue are in question.

In January Evans told those in the council meeting the bridge is completely safe to drive over, it’s just a routine and scheduled replacement of the bridge.

The bridge on Dallas Avenue is labeled as functionally obsolete, meaning it needs to be replaced based on its condition and its age. Tony Harris, a spokesperson for ALDOT told the Times-Journal in January that the department has more than 5,400 bridges throughout the state and each of those bridges are routinely inspected.

“We replace about 40 bridges a year at the cost of about $80 million total and we work bridges through a planning cycle that prioritizes them based on their age and the findings of those inspections,” Harris said. “We try to replace those bridges at the appropriate time as the bridge reaches the end of the life cycle.”

Harris confirmed the new bridge will have pedestrian access and the new bridge would be modernized, meaning things like the bridge railings would be safer for collisions.

Evans noted in January that Hooper Drive would be used as a detour route while the bridge is under construction, and city officials said Mallory Drive, parallel to Hooper, will probably be heavily trafficked during the construction as well for those on the detour route.