Interstate 70 will be completely shut down this week in downtown Indianapolis from the North Split to I-465 on the east side. It's for a rehab project that INDOT had originally said would take five months to complete this spring and into the summer months.

The eastbound lanes of the interstate are already closed and the westbound lanes will be closed off by Friday. The eastbound lanes will reopen May 14th while the westbound lanes will reopen May 22.

The department had planned on using partial closures on the stretch of interstates since so many people use it to get in and out of the city, but because of Gov. Holcomb's stay at home order due to the coronavirus 50-percent fewer people are coming in and out of downtown. So they decided to completely shut down I-70.

"There are a lot less people coming into the city right now so we thought we'd take advantage of that and get this work done," said INDOT spokeswoman Mallory Duncan to WISH-TV. "It gives us hours and hours of work that our guys don't have to do now."

Duncan said under partial closures, it takes a lot of time and effort to build new traffic patterns to divert traffic around the parts of the interstate they are working on. That, in turn, makes the project last longer. With the complete closure, they don't have to do that and focus solely on the rehab work.

What was a five-month-long project will now be finished in 30 days, said Duncan. That will also save INDOT and taxpayers around $10 million.