Local and state officials today hailed the beginning of construction on a $171 million project to upgrade the roadway on heavily traveled Interstate 5, a backbone of the state highway system, in the Santa Clarita Valley.
The I-5 Roadway Rehabilitation Project will replace and repair concrete pavement on nearly 16 miles of the freeway, with an expected completion date in mid-2019.
“This section of Interstate 5 has pavement that is more than 50 years old and no longer adequate for current and future traffic loads,” Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty said.
“This project is an essential investment to improve transportation infrastructure,” Dougherty said. “I-5 is the major north-south trucking corridor that facilitates the movement of goods and people by providing a connection between the Central Valley and the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.”
The improvements are being made on a segment of I-5 that is used by more than 1 million vehicles a week. The project will provide a smoother roadway with a 40-year design life, which will reduce the need for future lane closures for maintenance. Drivers will experience fewer delays in the future while enjoying an improved ride.
Over the next two years, the improvements will be made on 15.8 miles of I-5 from a half-mile south of State Route 14 (the Antelope Valley Freeway) to 1.7 miles north of Lake Hughes Road.
Concrete pavement will be replaced in the outside lanes (#3 and #4 lanes). In the inside lanes (#1 and #2 lanes), broken concrete slabs will also be replaced and the lanes will receive profile grinding to ensure a smooth surface for vehicles.
In July, the contractor, Atkinson Construction, began placing temporary lane markings and concrete barriers on the southbound side of I-5 for the first stage of the project.
Stage 1 work will be conducted on the southbound and northbound sides of the freeway, mainly between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. on weeknights.
On most nights, at least two freeway lanes will be kept open for traffic in the work zone, except from midnight to 4 a.m. when at least one lane normally will be open for traffic.
Closure of all freeway lanes is expected to occur infrequently during the project.
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45 Comments
A real pain
Our corrupt government never wants to mention that all this work is being done so that they can set up TOLLS!!!
No more carpool lanes! TOLLS! Get ready Santa Clarita! Bend over and take it like a mild mannered progressive!
Gas will be over $5.00 per gallon when it’s completed – just to add insult to injury.
Don’t forget increased traffic due to NEWHALL ranch
Steve Kaplan
Oh well … hopefully when its done it wont tear the a arms out of your car !!
Steve Kaplan no, it will just tear you in a place you don’t want to be torn.
So looking at heading north
And there’s potholes on the freeway next to Sand Canyon…. Damn near breaking my car
The I5 needs help, but a 6 month project spread over 5 years. Do one job every day instead of once or twice a month, then everyone wins.
Add that they are charging over $10 million per mile. Seriously over priced. The government needs to learn how to negotiate.
Unions
Fraud is apparently rampant in our government and you’re right!
Guarantee contractors will go over budget
Over budget and behind schedule.
SCV once was a nice place… now, it’s an overcrowded mess with very little sense of community left.
Lol ok sure and where do you live now? SCV makes the list for nicest and safest place to live
I have lived here since 1969, thats when scv was a great place to live. Saugus speedway,Mustang drive in movie, 1 stop lite between bouqet and whites, the falls were still clean, one high school Hart, and just a great way of life. There are some nice things here, but not like it was.
Kerry Feldman you get it. You realize how much has been lost.
Amanda Guevara
Good, repaving those truck lanes! Some of those lanes are aweful
They sure are
It’ll be yeeears before it’s completely finished I’m sure ?
most of the places I go up there are off the 14 now so at least I got that going for me. Lol
Garrett’s company got the job. It’s about a 2 year project until it’s fully reopen
They say 2 years. I’m sure it’ll be longer
What do you mean begins, it began over a month ago & is very annoying ?
This two year project could be done in 6 months with a private contractor – Look at the mess on the I5 at the Orange County line – Very slow progress with no end in sight
Hey, as a local, I’m happy to finally see the investment. That road has been tearing apart our cars!
Late kudos to Caltans for finally getting it done!
Gary
Why aren’t they adding (extending) the Carpool lane? They will probably decide to do it AFTER all the current construction is completed. Very inefficient!!!
It’s going to be really awesome sat in traffic watching union workers sweeping the same pile of dirt around for the next few years for a job that should be done by next summer
Veronica Mendoza More traffic ??
noooooooooo!!!!! :-( ughhhh….
Pearl McCarter
Burton Pang
It’s a Frickin pain in the ass!!!
Oh my God every single comment on here is people complaining. -_-
Yes people are being affected by this cluster-$uck!
Yes they all will be a little bit affected wow I feal so sorry, get over your selfs ( eye-rolling intensifies)
I love this tow way to much to be selfish and cry about everything, this town is worth every penny I pay in taxes
And you wonder why?
It’s dramatic the way we are being affected. I’m having to get up earlier and earlier to get to work on time because of poor community planning on the part of our gov. Just wait till our air quality declines even more due to the 21k new homes going in with an average of two cars per home. Yeah we are pissed
We had enough freeway construction for the past 50 years on the I-5 freeway! After the earthquake & the truck route tunnel fire was enough! Either build us new roadways so we can commute to work in the valley or ask us, the good tax payers in SCV, Castaic, and Stevenson Ranch first!
Well, folks you have just seen (and read if you reach this far down the list of complaints) that your concerns and issues are being dealt with by your local governance and your State representatives.
The fact is that the I5 is a beat-up piece of crap highway; anyone who has driven south from the Grapevine has to know that the two right lanes (i.e. Truck lanes) are beat to hell, and are causing damage to any vehicle that traverses them.
Now , do you think it is us citizens that are driving this work? No, don’t be silly. It is the fact that the pavement is so torn up by 18-wheelers that it is costing the transport companies sh**loads of money to pay for tires and brakes, and other parts of our transport system that is driving this.
Not to mention the ignorant drivers of non-commercial vehicles who insist on driving 55 mph on the uphill grades in the #1 and #2 lanes while the trucks are going slower in the #3 and #4 lanes.
And I’d like to point out that all those cheese-heads who are driving while texting and wandering across two lanes while talking to their wives, mothers, cousins, and other a*
*holes are doing so without being ticketed.
Get used to it SClarita. This is your future, and fixing the pavement is not really the answer.
Glad I’m missing that
Yet they have failed to truly widen the freeway to accommodate the traffic we have now and worse yet the stupidly decided to add tens of thousand of homes to our valley adding thousands of cars to our commute. Can someone explain what they were thinking to me?
The construction N and S bound make this road now very dangerous to drive, much more dangerous then prior to construction. The number of serious accidents in this stretch is up considerably just in the few months since construction began. And the added commute time is immeasurable. Seriously, they are going to leave this mess through 2019? There has to be a more efficient or faster way to get this done. It seems like there is no accountability for the bureaucrats who make these decisions. I suspect if they had to deal with the additional danger or inconvenience things would be done differently.