Main Street bus routes to be detoured during construction in Lynchburg

LYNCHBURG, Va. – A two-year-long construction project on Main Street is expected to start in10 days. 

Lynchburg bus rider like Carl Buck said, "What goes through my mind is the bus routes is already screwed up as it is, because it runs on Sundays. By all this construction going on, it's just going to make it worse."

Come Sept. 16, buses that stop at Eighth and Main streets and 10th and Main streets will have to take another route. 

"We have to detour completely around it as the large buses cannot make the turn  off of Main Street onto the side streets  to go around the closure," Brian Booth, general manager the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company, said.

The GLTC is ready to work around the construction. 

City leaders said bus drivers will use Commerce Street as a detour instead.

"We'll then come up to Seventh Street and service the stop near the academy," Booth said.

One of the most popular stops is right in front of the Free Clinic. Thirty percent of the clinic's patients use the bus. 

Clinic officials said they're in the early planning stages to accomodate their patients and are also working with GLTC. 

City leaders say this is a temporary fix, but they still want customers to be aware of the changes. 

"We are going to to work on an alternative to get a smaller vehicle that can get into that area right there around the 10 and 900 blocks of Main Street during construction," Booth said.