TANEY COUNTY, Mo. —  With the reconstruction of three new Taney County bridges, comes traffic concerns from drivers.

The bridges include one at Kentucky Creek, one at Beaver Creek and another at Caney Creek.

MoDOT shared its plans with the community Thursday night.

Residents were concerned about how traffic would be handled during this  process.

Originally, the plan was to fix all three bridges at once– but now, MoDOT has decided to fix one at a time.

Three different bridges, three different replacement plans.

“They’re a little rough,” said Southern Construction Worker Randall Cummings.  “They need to be worked on and widened.”

All three bridges lie along Route 76 in Taney County.

“When we first met with the public earlier this year, we talked about closing the road for all three bridges,” said MoDOT Transportation Project Manager Kristi Bachman.  “And learned that would be quite an impact– so we went back to the drawing board to see what we could do.  We came up with a temporary bypass on two bridges– so Kentucky Creek and Caney Creek will have temporary bypasses during bridge construction.”

For Beaver Creek, it’s a little different.  MoDot plans to close Route 76 at the bridge.  The signed detour will be about 33 miles.  MoDOT plans on fixing one bridge at a time.

“They’ve served their life,” said Bachman.  “They were built over 60 years ago, and it’s going to cost more to maintain them– so it’s time to get a new bridge in place.”

Randall Cummings works for southern construction.

“It looks like they’re accommodating us to get around where we need to,” said Cummings.

He says the plan puts his mind a little more at ease.

“They didn’t know if they’d be able to do temporaries at first– and if they didn’t, that was going to put us and local farmers 60 to 70 miles out of the way.”

Work on the Kentucky Creek Bridge is scheduled to begin in June. 

First responders have mutual agreements with other entities while work is being done.

“When we do start– use caution, use the bypasses and drive slowly on them,” said Bachman.  “Pay attention to signs, use the detour when it’s in place.”

The project is estimated to cost around $4.9 million.

MoDOT estimates each bridge will take six to six and a half months to complete.