BATON ROUGE - Drivers heading westbound on Airline Highway can expect a short detour at the Plank Road bridge as the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development performs needed repairs to the overpass. 

Commuters will have to take the service road around the construction site while DOTD works 24 hours a day for the next 14 days to finish up. 

DOTD spokesperson Rodney Mallett said by doing this, they'll be able to get out of the way faster.

"If we didn't do it this way, if we would've just closed one lane and followed the regular protocol for bridge repair, this could go on for quite some time," Mallett said.

Plank Road remains open but the ramp to merge onto U.S. 190 West is closed. It wasn't an emergency closure, but a planned maintenance project by DOTD.

"It's a closure that was greatly needed. We knew this was coming. We knew that this project was in the books," Mallett said.

They're repairing the girder, which carries the majority of the load of the high traffic bridge. 

"It's a full scale repair really, so it's girders and barring and things like that so they can jack up a deck a little bit and make those repairs and then it'll be ready to go," Mallett said.

The bridge is around 60 years old. Mallett says older bridges often need repairs. 

"A lot of our older bridges around the state need repairs on a semi regular basis, and so this one was in need of repairs not regularly but at times, but to do this full scale large repair it was coming," Mallett said.

Construction is expected to wrap up by Nov. 3.