Commuting is about to get more difficult in the southwest metro as a section of Hwy. 169 closes Sunday evening and will be shut down until July.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation will close the southbound lanes of Hwy. 169 between Crosstown Hwy. 62 and Valley View Road in Edina to resurface the road, improve drainage systems, install guardrails and put a new deck on the overpass spanning the Crosstown.

Southbound Hwy. 169 traffic will be diverted onto westbound Hwy. 212 to Interstate 494 during the nine-week closure.

Northbound drivers should not get too giddy. Their lanes will remain open, but once work on the southbound side is done, it will be their turn to deal with construction-related closures. Sometime in early July, the northbound lanes will be closed between I-494 and Bren Road, said Nick Carpenter, a MnDOT spokesman.

To complicate matters, construction will expand north of the Crosstown to near Bren Road sometime in the summer, Carpenter said.

At that time motorists will experience closures between I-394 and Crosstown that will last into the early fall. MnDOT will work on one side of the highway, then the other to help with traffic flow, Carpenter said.

"This is a big one," Carpenter said. "That detour will be difficult."

Those detours will direct northbound motorists onto I-494 west and north to I-394 or east to Hwy. 100, then north to westbound I-394. Southbound drivers will follow the reverse.

The $10.8 million project will also bring three weekend closures of the Crosstown at Hwy. 169 between May and September, when old bridge decks over the Crosstown and Hwy. 212 are removed.

Carpenter advised motorists to allow extra time and plan on some delays as the closures kick in.

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