Southbound drivers on South Kings Avenue in Ruskin will lose a lane for four weeks starting Tuesday, Sept. 8, as pipeline crews repair a bridge barrier wall over Buckhorn Creek.

The South Hillsborough Pipeline project announced that the exterior southbound lane will close from just south of Ronele Drive to Dali Drive. Southbound traffic will squeeze into one lane through the work zone. Access to Denham Road will stay open.

Crews will work 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and the lane will reopen each night after work wraps. One exception: from Tuesday, Sept. 15, through Friday, Sept. 18, the lane will stay closed around the clock. The 24-hour closure allows concrete formwork to remain in place while workers replace the concrete barrier wall along the west side of the bridge.

The closure is weather-dependent. If work stays on schedule, the lane reduction would end in early October.

The project is part of Tampa Bay Water's South Hillsborough Pipeline, a 26-mile, 5-foot-diameter drinking-water transmission main under construction across southern Hillsborough County. Crews closed portions of South Kings Avenue in July and August for pipe installation. An Aug. 16 overnight closure between Lumsden Road and Bloomingdale Avenue reopened all lanes the following morning, according to the Osprey Observer. At the time, the contractor said it would schedule final restoration of medians, curbs and the bridge wall "in the coming weeks."

Maribel Medina, a Tampa Bay Water communications representative, wrote in a Sept. 2 Osprey Observer column that the project team is "working closely with Hillsborough County on all maintenance of traffic plans" and that detours and closures are reported to navigation apps such as Waze and Google Maps.

No official detour route has been announced for the Sept. 8 lane reduction. Residents can sign up for email alerts about closures at southhillsboroughpipeline.com/contact or call (813) 485-6480 for project information.