Out-of-box thinking: urban road construction

I may be as far as they come from being an expert on the current limits of technology, but I'm not going to let that stop me from thinking outside the box when i try to address a serious urban problem: the congestion caused by urban road and expressway reconstruction.

Construction on our major arteries means gridlock, lost hours of productivity, and a clogging of the arteries that may be the urban equivalent of a stroke.

We go along with construction messes and never question: might there be a better way. I'd like to throw out a possible better way (again with the caveatt that I know nothing about the technology (and the physics) that would allow it to happen.

Would it be tehcnologically possible today for a company (companies) to create a ramp system that would allow for a by-pass of a stretch of road under reconstruction..through heading above of the construction site?

I'm thinking of system that could be, for example, be used on an expressway:

1. made of steel

2. assembled on site and covering all lanes

3. consisting of the following elements: a low grade up-ramp, a series of flat segments above grade level (construction zone), and a low-grade down-ramp. all sections interconnected

4. with a length no longer than a mile

All serious lane closures would take place only in the areas covered by the ramping system....although, like today, other preliminary work could take place on other parts of the expressway.

When one section is complete, the by-pass system is disassembled and moved down one mile and reconstructed.

Traffic speed would have to be tightly monitored.

Would this cost a fortune to build such a system? Of course. Would the system pay for itself in serving the needs of urban traffic construction? Unquestionably.

And, as I said previously, smaller segments could be used on sections of arterial streets that need reconstruction.

For all the difficulties that designing such a system would entail (and those issues would be faced by private enterprise anyway), wouldn't an ability to keep major streets and expressway open (relatively open) at all times make it worth any efforts we can put into it.

Thoughts?>