The Golden Valley Bridge Widening Project has been in production for almost a year and is said to be on-schedule for it’s completion this July.

Traffic was slow over the Golden Valley Bridge on Friday when construction workers shut down lanes to merge the old and the new bridge together.

“We’re tying the existing bridge into our new bridge,” said Harry Corder, senior engineer and project manager. “After the concrete strengthens we’ll have a complete bridge. Our next phase would be to start the back filling of the abutments and to start the surface treatment on the bridge,” Corder said.

The bridge widening project began in March 2015 with the aim of making traffic a little more bearable in Santa Clarita and will include two lanes in each direction, a sidewalk and a bike path.

“We’ve come along way since we’ve started construction,” said Corder. “Our next phase after finishing the road work on this side of the new bridge would be to go into the next phase and do the widening on the existing bridge.”

The bridge construction has caused short-term road closures since the project began, but Corder said these closures haven’t been a problem to most people.

“We’ve gotten very few complaints. People have had questions and we’ve been able to resolve them almost the same day.”

State Route 14 is scheduled to experience night closures from Monday, Jan. 25 to Friday, Jan. 29. During construction, northbound lanes will be closed from midnight to 6 a.m. and the southbound lanes will be closed from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Both sides of the freeway will not be closed at the same time, according to a city press release.

Traffic will be detoured utilizing respective SR- 14 off-ramps and on-ramps in each direction. Motorists who travel during the early hours through this area are advised to plan on slightly heavier traffic, the release said.

The proposed new name for the new bridge is the Connie Worden-Roberts Memorial Bridge. Assemblyman Scott Wilk’s bill to rename the Golden Valley Road bridge as the “Connie Worden-Roberts Memorial Bridge” cleared both houses of the Legislature unanimously last September.

Worden-Roberts championed the development of the valley’s transportation network for nearly four decades, serving as the vice-chair of the city of Santa Clarita Formation Committee and serving on the city’s first planning commission. She also served as chairwoman of the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles County, founder of the Valley Industry Association, former chairwoman of the board and director of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, and as a member of many more community organizations.

She died Aug. 12, 2014.

Corder said the timeline for the project is on schedule, and the workers are set to complete the bridge in July.