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Highway construction to take holiday break

Work will be suspended on all state highway construction projects in Idaho for the Memorial Day holiday (May 31), except in special circumstances. In most cases, work will resume Tuesday (June 1).

ITD requires contractors on highway construction projects to discontinue work on any roadway open to the traveling public during the holiday, except for normal maintenance operations. This includes any day of a three-day holiday weekend or July 3-5, unless otherwise permitted. In the vast majority of cases, this means that work will be suspended during that time period.

Some of those rare conditions in which work may continue are:

If crews are not working on the roadway open to the public,
If the road is already closed and all traffic is using a designated detour,
In an emergency situation (like flooding) where the roadway has been damaged and requires repair, or
On roads with very low traffic volumes.

"The contractor is just like anybody else, and has no interest in working over the holiday," said ITD Chief Engineer Tom Cole. "Most would probably take these days off even if it was not required to keep the road open to travelers."