KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lost drivers and closed roadways. The headaches of construction season intensify this weekend with the impending weekend closure I-70 in preparation for a bridge replacement.

That closure is planned to start early Saturday morning and expected to last all the way to Monday. The bridge at center of the situation is Blue Ridge Boulevard in Independence.

MoDOT will be diverting interstate drivers away from that area of I-70 completely – making cars loop around I-470 and I-435 instead of taking smaller side roads.

But after this weekend it will be about another year until the bridge reopens. That means a much longer impact for people who live and work in the area.

The Blue Ridge Boulevard bridge closed on Wednesday ahead of the demolition and already the situation caused some fresh traffic issues.

“Probably lost,” Robert Collins said with a laugh. “He’s not a familiar looking truck.”

Collins is an employee at Skyline Liquors which neighbors the bridge. She said she has heard grumbles. He says it’s something employees and customers talk about and are not happy about it.

At MoDOT’s command center in Lee’s Summit area engineer Jill Bruss said, for the short-term closure of I-70, they thought hard about scheduling.

“We were trying to find the weekend with the least amount of impacts and this summer is just packed full. There’s everything from Taylor Swift to – there’s lots of big names,” Bruss said.

Dan Norman lives at the house closest to the bridge on the opposite side.

“There’s different ways we could go but it was a lot more convenient when the bridge was in because I could just jump right on I-70 and go,” Norman said.

There are similar sentiments on the other side of the bridge.

“Some of [the customers] said they’ll still drive around to get here. But some of them said ‘no way,'” Collins said.

“I’ve had a couple of truck drivers come in and ask me how to find Noland Road today,” Collins said, laughing.