Avoiding the I-40 bridge at Memphis

[SteveNancyF]

We're planning a trip eastbound around July 15th on I-40. This morning, I read that construction on the I-40 bridge at Memphis is expected to be ongoing through the end of July, and that traffic is now backed up about 3 hours to take the detour across the I-55 bridge.


We'd like to head northeast to the U.S. 412/I-155 bridge instead. Where should we exit off I-40 in order to avoid getting caught in the slow-moving parking lot through West Memphis?

[sirtate]

Download Waze onto your phone...

It will re-route you based on real-time traffic speeds for the quickest transit times...

I use it religiously in my 18 wheeler...

[Bill M.]

I would go I 44 east from Oklahoma city now and end up in back on I-40 in Nashville. The driving directions list it as about 20 miles further and a little longer than time I40. And that is not considering the hours and hours of backups you are going to hit. All of the roads listed for the route are pretty good. Tennessee has good roads. I am going that way when we go to Amarillo from Knoxville this fall.

[SteveNancyF]

Thank you, sirtate. Sounds as if the Waze app will be worth the money!

[SteveNancyF]

I'm confused, Bill M. According to my maps, I-44 east from OKC would take us to St. Louis--a big detour.

[Bill M.]

I could be wrong. But that showed as only 20 some miles further than 1 40 from Knoxville to Aramarillo.

[TMBashor]

Wake is free.

[Fungus]

We took US-67 from Little Rock to US-412 at Walnut Ridge which takes you to I-40 at Jackson, TN. Some of that is on I-155. Good highway all the way except some porpoising on the concrete.

To get to Cedars of Lebanon SP we took I-840 around Nashville, avoiding the typical old snaky interstate route through a major city.

We were already in North Little Rock at a Harvest Host at the time. After traveling through the deep south we ended up at Land Between the Lakes and took the same river crossing to head home, again through Little Rock.

[ttrout]

If you can time it early early morning it won’t be as bad. We detoured through downtown Memphis

[XCountry]

Originally Posted by ttrout

If you can time it early early morning it won’t be as bad. We detoured through downtown Memphis

I had the same experience last week, we left the campground (Tom Sawyer RV) a bit before 6 AM, hit the bridge a few minutes after. Maybe 10 minutes of net delay in total.

[Dtrentr]

We went through there last Tuesday at 9 am and had a 40 minute delay—not worth the detour to the MS river bridges at Caruthersville or Helena

[Airtandem]

any updates ? I want to take I 55 from Il. to Jackson Ms.

[jondrew55]

Originally Posted by sirtate

Download Waze onto your phone...

It will re-route you based on real-time traffic speeds for the quickest transit times...

I use it religiously in my 18 wheeler...

On my first trip tp Topsail from Orlando in my motorhome Waze told me to turn off of I-75 way before it intersected I-10. I figured it was some stupid navigation error with Waze. Nope, the police had a shootout with some guy near Micanopy resulting in I-75 being shut down for 7 hours while they conducted a homicide investigation. Unfortunately Waze is far from clear in telling you why it did a re route and I got stuck past the last possible exit to avoid that mess.

On the positive side, Waze is great for notifications about accidents, objects in the road and police. I use it all the time even when just cruising to the grocery store.

[sirtate]

It took me a few months, and therefore about 30k miles to trust it...

Now if she tells me to exit 'randomly', I exit...

My only caveat is that you can't tell it how big/heavy your vehicle is and have it avoid roads you don't fit on...