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E-Mail Forum – 2018 |
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Richmond-San Rafael Bridge third lane could open next month
January 8, 2018 |
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| Richmond-San Rafael Bridge third lane could open next month 
The shoulder of the eastbound Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, now used for disabled vehicles or road crews, will be available soon as an extra traffic lane from 2 to 7 p.m. (Robert Tong/Marin Independent Journal)
By Mark Prado | Marin Independent Journal
January 8, 2018 at 6:14 am
Commuters should see some traffic relief when a third lane on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge opens, a move set for April that could happen as soon as next month if testing of systems proves successful, transportation officials said.
As the economy has picked up there are more vehicles on the road and the slowdown around the bridge in recent years has caused evening traffic to back up onto northbound Highway 101 and eastbound Interstate 580 in Marin, as well as southbound Highway 101. Opening a third lane will help ease that congestion, transportation officials said.
“Once this lane opens, people will see an immediate difference,” said Dianne Steinhauser, executive director of the Transportation Authority of Marin, one of the agencies behind the effort. “It will be a little of trial-and-error with the hours.”
The traffic around the bridge has a ripple effect. The northbound commute from 3:30 to 7:10 p.m. on Highway 101 from Marin City to north of Tamalpais Drive in Corte Madera has been ranked as 15th worst in the Bay Area. Drivers in that pocket lose 2,040 hours a day in traffic, according to Metropolitan Transportation Commission figures.
Once open, the added eastbound car lane will be available from 2 to 7 p.m. every day of the week, allowing Caltrans to retain a shoulder for maintenance work during other times of the day, said John Goodwin, spokesman for Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
The lane will likely first open on a Sunday as a test before the Monday commute. Once the lane is open, the speed limit on the bridge will drop from 55 to 50 mph.
“All the major work has not been done,” Goodwin said. “Now they are out testing the systems.”
Overhead electrical work needed to hang signs is done. Twenty signs on the span will show a green arrow or red “X” to indicate whether the lane is open and a yellow “X” and arrow during the transition. Cameras to watch traffic on the span have also been added.
Other project elements in Marin to ease traffic flow around the span include reconfiguring the Main Street onramp from the San Quentin Village area and replacing pavement on the bridge approaches to accommodate heavier traffic loads, according to officials. Lanes along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near San Quentin have also been improved. Over the summer, the Bellam Boulevard interchange also will get work.
“This will really make a difference for those coming southbound on Highway 101 and using the flyover to get to the bridge and we expect some relief for northbound Highway 101 drivers too,” Steinhauser said. “We will be monitoring traffic to see the effects.”
It was last January when the Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved a $27.2 million contract with Berkeley-based O.C. Jones and Sons Inc. to construct the third lane and associated work.
There were plans to open the lane in November. But one element of the work — pushing a retaining wall on the Richmond side back 15 feet to create sight lines for drivers in a third lane — proved more difficult than originally thought as crews carve away a hillside.
The bridge initially had three lanes when it opened in 1956, but when drought hit in 1977 a lane on the top deck was closed so a pipeline could be placed across the span to bring water to Marin. When the pipeline was removed in 1978, the top and lower deck lanes were converted to shoulders because of light traffic.
The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is the third least-used of the Bay Area spans, ahead only of the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges. But over the past five years, traffic has increased about 13 percent as the economy has rebounded.
“I think it will make a difference along with the improvements being made to the approaches, as well as Bellam,” said Damon Connolly, Marin supervisor and a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission board, of the added lane. “It will be noticeable.” |
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