215 Freeway In Grand Terrace To Shut Down For Massive Bridge Move
GRAND TERRACE (CBSLA.com) — Caltrans will shut down the 215 Freeway in Grand Terrace next week in order to move a massive bridge.
KCAL9's Tom Wait reported that three new rail bridge spans being constructed will ultimately be placed over the 215 near Barton Road as part of a bigger project to widen the freeway and add HOV lanes.
"This is going to give us some traffic relief. We're going to have those HOV lanes available," Caltrans spokeswoman Terri Kasinga said.
Transporting the huge sections from where they're being built to where they'll eventually serve as bridges, however, will be a major challenge. Each span weighs 1.1 million pounds, is 200 feet long and has 98,000 bolts.
"We've never moved a bridge in this way using these self-propelled modular transports down a freeway for this distance," Kasinga said. "The company that's doing the move is Sarens. They did the move for the space shuttle into Los Angeles, so we're very proud of that."
All lanes of the 215 between Iowa Avenue and Barton Road will close at 11 p.m. April 4 and into the next morning.
The shutdown will repeat throughout April. On Wednesday nights, there will be partial closures.
Drivers said they were a bit concerned.
"It's going to cause a lot of traffic for the area because…it will be hard for people to get through," Renee Rivas said.
