By Bill Haberman, WPRO News

RIDOT Director Peter Alviti says traffic engineers are looking into the use of the southern span of the Washington Bridge to alleviate traffic jams during construction on the northern span.

The DOT paused its work on 195 West after a week of gridlock outraged drivers from the East Bay into Providence.

One of the ideas is to take a lane from the Eastbound side of 195 for the use of Westbound traffic. This would keep four lanes of traffic open for people driving to Providence from the East Bay and Southeastern Mass

“I think we can maintain the same number of lanes by just doing the lane shift and scooching people over a bit,” Alviti told reporters at a DOT event in Tiverton.

Delays on the Washington Bridge have eased substantially with the reopening of lanes that were closed last week.