Mount Vernon officials are warning about traffic in the city as they prepare to close a busy roadway.

Officials from the New York State Department of Transportation have concerns about the structural integrity of the Fulton Avenue and East Street overpasses.

As a result, Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard has ordered the overpasses be shut down with traffic being rerouted to the city's southeast side.

The mayor says based on reports issued by the state DOT, the city just can't take the risk of having overweight vehicles travel over the bridge and causing a possible road failure - they say it's just too dangerous.

“Despite decades of temporary fixes, the city's historic underinvestment in its infrastructure has manifested in yet another condition imminently dangerous to the safety and welfare of our residents and visitors. As the mayor of these legacy problems, I cannot consciously ignore these dangers as they continue to emerge much to our collective exasperation," says Patterson-Howard.

City officials say there have been temporary fixes to the bridge for decades but there is no easy solution to replacing underground supports on the remnants of a 1912 structure. City officials say they are working with the state DOT to fix what they are calling red flag conditions, and they have to look at long-term solutions which will no doubt be costly.

Many people don't even realize that the stretch of road is actually a bridge. "It's actually the old railway that used to run through Mount Vernon and there's still a bridge underneath it, so New York state cited us and said there's some critical repairs that have to be completed," says Mount Vernon DPW Commissioner Damani Bush.

The bridge was built back in 1912 and went out of service in 1937. Since then, it's suffered corrosion damage and state DOT officials called it red flag conditions and are now working with the city to stabilize it.

Bush says it will take a couple days for the city to shut down the road. "We're mobilizing all of our resources to get some of our jersey barriers, the prior signage. We're putting together our maintenance and protection traffic plan, along with New York state and we're going to be releasing that over the next few days."

The tentative plan is that East Third Street will be closed between Langdon and Hartford avenues, and on Fulton Avenue between Beekman Avenue and East Third Street.

There is no word on how long the roadway will be shut down.

They will be posting the details of the maintenance and detoured traffic patterns as well as bus routes on the city's website and social media pages.