Ask anyone who works near Johnson Lane about the traffic and you'll get the same answer. Jackson Group Peterbilt sits on the frontage road just north of the interstate exit, close enough that sales manager James Balzer has spent years watching semis queue up trying to get on and off I-90. The exit sits beside two truck stops and a truck wash, the kind of cluster that turns an ordinary interchange into a bottleneck several times a day.
For a decade, Lockwood residents have heard that "the interchange is finally happening." What most people don't realize is that there are two separate interchange projects carrying that description, and they are years apart. One breaks ground this fall or winter. The other is still in design, with construction not even tentatively scheduled until 2029. If you live in Lockwood and you're trying to figure out what changes for your commute this year, you need to know which one people are talking about.
The One Breaking Ground This Winter
The project actually moving is the Johnson Lane Interchange, officially Segment 4 of the Billings Bypass. The Montana Department of Transportation expected to open the segment for contractor bids in summer 2026, with construction starting fall or winter 2026 and continuing into 2027 and 2028.
When it's built, it will be Montana's first diverging diamond interchange. Roughly 80 of these exist across the country, and none have been built in this state before now. The design works by temporarily crossing traffic to the opposite side of the road through the interchange, which eliminates left turns across oncoming traffic and lets vehicles merge onto the interstate more directly. For an exit that handles heavy truck volume alongside regular commuter traffic, that's the whole point.
Utility relocation work is already underway in the area ahead of the main construction, which is usually the first visible sign that a project like this is about to become real rather than theoretical.
The Detour You'll Actually Be Driving
According to Yellowstone County's Lockwood Pedestrian Safety District, the approved detour plan during construction routes traffic through Johnson Lane, Old Hardin Road, Coulson Road, and Becraft Lane. If you use any of those streets to get to work, to the truck stops, or just to cross to the other side of Lockwood, plan on seeing more traffic on them over the next two construction seasons.
The project also includes new or replaced traffic signals at nine intersections, seven of them within the interchange area itself. That's a meaningful number for anyone timing a commute around lights that don't currently exist or that operate differently than they will once the interchange reconfigures.
What's Already Finished
Three of the six segments that make up the full Billings Bypass are done: Five Mile Road, the Yellowstone River Bridge, and the Railroad Overpass. The new river crossing has been open to the public for a while now, reached by a temporary connection along Coulson Road and the reconstructed Five Mile Road up to Old Highway 312.
The completed bridge over the Yellowstone River carries two travel lanes in each direction and a 10-foot shared-use path along the west side, so if you've already walked or biked across that bridge, you've seen a preview of what the Johnson Lane segment is supposed to extend through the rest of the corridor. The plan for the diverging diamond interchange itself includes a shared-use path running through it for pedestrians and cyclists, along with upgraded sidewalks and ADA facilities on the streets that feed into it.
The Other Interchange, Still Three Years Out
Here's where the confusion sets in. MDT is also evaluating a second, separate project called the Lockwood Interchange Reconstruction. This one covers different ground: widening I-90 to three lanes in each direction between the Lockwood and Johnson Lane interchanges, plus improvements to the Coburn Road intersection nearby.
The design phase for this project is expected to wrap up sometime in 2026, but the tentative construction year is 2029, and MDT's own project page notes that timeline depends on funding and other factors that could push it later. In other words, this is the interchange work that's still mostly on paper. If someone tells you the Lockwood exit itself, as opposed to Johnson Lane, is about to get torn up, that's not accurate yet. It's on a schedule three years out at the earliest.
Two projects, two different exits, two very different timelines. The Johnson Lane work is what actually shows up in your daily drive starting this winter. The Lockwood Interchange widening is what shows up in a few years, assuming funding holds.
What Changes for an Ordinary Drive This Winter
If you commute through Johnson Lane regularly, here's the practical version. Construction traffic will start funneling through Old Hardin Road, Coulson Road, and Becraft Lane as crews begin work on the interchange itself. Expect new signal timing at multiple points as the nine planned traffic signals go in, particularly around the interchange area where seven of them are located. The interstate itself keeps two lanes in each direction through this segment, so the widening happening on the diverging diamond is about how you get on and off, not about adding capacity to I-90 through this stretch.
Roadway work will also extend to North Frontage Road, Old Hardin Road, Cole Street, and Becraft Lane, since all of those streets need to tie into the new interchange configuration to function properly once it opens. If your daily route touches any of those names, this is the stretch of road to watch over the next two construction seasons.
None of this touches the Coburn Road corridor near the older Lockwood exit. That work waits on the separate project still in design, and residents who use that intersection won't see changes tied to this construction cycle.
The truck stops, the Peterbilt shop, the daily backups Balzer has described for years: all of that sits right at the center of what's finally moving. Montana's first diverging diamond interchange is coming to the exit that's needed one for a long time, and construction starts close enough now that utility crews are already out working the ground.
If you're trying to plan around road work for the next two years, or you just want a clear answer the next time someone mentions "the Lockwood interchange" and you're not sure which one they mean, The Premier Group keeps an eye on what's actually happening in this corridor, not just what people assume is happening.
