Marina Bay Residents, already plagued with train horns all night long, are now having to endure 24-hour a day construction noise. First, it was a subcontractor, Pitcher Drilling, piercing a PG&E gas line that caused a two-hour neighborhood evacuation.

Then, on August 8, a Marina Bay resident wrote, “Last night, a front-loader and dump truck worked right outside the PG&E entrance until well after 2am. Scrapping, dumping, back-up beeping, crashes of metal. NO sleep was possible, even with windows shut tight. Are expected to endure this - whenever and wherever - well into 2015???”

Without explaining the August 8 night work, the community outreach contact for the project, Jacqueline Majors, provided the following:

The General Contractor Gordon N Ball, not their sub-contractors been given the authority to work “24” hours a day.  However, keep in mind that the only work that would be allowed to proceed for 24 hours is work associated with the railroad.  This work is not scheduled until the end of the year and would only take place within the 4-6 weekend work windows dictated to us by the railroad; our project work hours are Monday thru Friday, 7am - 7pm; with some occasional evening work with prior approval and notifications continuing until 9pm.  Within the next several weeks there may be the possibility of Saturday work in preparation of the closure of the Marina Bay Parkway.  We will be doing work on two upcoming Saturdays between the hours of 9am - 6pm.

As I explained today: All evening, weekend work will be posted on our website with advanced notice: www.moodyup.com.  I am responsible for keeping the website up-to-date and will also incorporate twitter and text messages in the next several weeks to the Community with reminders and “off work times”.

You are correct, Chad Smalley is the Project Manager for the City of Richmond, Steve Castaldo is the on-site Project Engineer for the Hanna Group CM team, and I am Jacqueline Majors the Community Outreach contact.  As we discussed earlier, Anchorage residents as well as all residents and business owners in the Marina Bay area will be notified of all impacted work that would occur outside of the normal work hours.  I met your husband last week when I delivered letters from the City for Photo Surveying and at that time I also explained my role on this project and left him with my contact information.  I am canvassing the neighborhood, attending the various HOA Marina Bay Monthly Board Meetings, as well as attending the Marina Bay Neighborhood Council Meeting to provide updates on the construction project as well as to answer questions and concerns on the project.  

We thank you for your concerns and are excited to be moving forward on the Officer Bradley A. Moody Underpass project.

Jacqueline Majors
J Majors & Associates, LLC
Bay Area, Los Angeles
Off:   510.243.1763
Fax:  510.243.1761   
Cell:  925.949.6196
jacqueline@jmajorsandassociates.com
www.jmajorsandassociates.com

In a related new and exciting development, it appears that the California Transportation Commission has recommended funding for the Richmond Rail Connector, and interchange to be constructed in North Richmond that allows transit of trains between the BNSF tracks and the UP tracks. The reason that mile-long trains now roll through south Richmond is to transfer BNSF trains coming from the Port of Oakland on the UP tracks that run alongside I-80 to transfer to the BNSF tracks that run north out of the Richmond BNSF yard and along the shoreline. The total cost is about $23 million, with the State of California picking up $10,880,000.

The Richmond Rail Connector will obviate the need to run the these mile long trains through multiple grade crossings in south Richmond and presumably will eliminate both honking and blockages associated with them. The Richmond Pacific Railroad will continue to switch cars in the south Richmond area, but they do not work at night, and their trains and resulting blockages are short.

Below is the resolution, and the EIR can be found at  http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/documents/richmond_rail/initial_study.pdf and http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/documents/richmond_rail/environmental_assessment_appendices.pdf.