Countywide : El Toro ‘Y’ Detours Set for Pre-Dawn

Some Orange County motorists will be detoured from the El Toro “Y” interchange during pre-dawn hours in the next few days because of interchange reconstruction work, Caltrans said.

The southbound Santa Ana Freeway will close from Alton Parkway to Lake Forest Drive, and the San Diego Freeway will shut down from Irvine Center Drive to Lake Forest Drive, in both cases from 11:59 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday, and again from 11:59 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. Tuesday.

Traffic barriers will be installed, and traffic lanes will be striped, Caltrans officials said. The striping will reduce lane width from 12 feet to 11 feet, with no change in the number of lanes.

Detour signs will redirect southbound Santa Ana Freeway motorists off the freeway at Alton Parkway to Muirlands Boulevard to the Lake Forest Drive freeway on-ramp. Southbound San Diego Freeway motorists will take Irvine Center Drive to the Lake Forest Drive on-ramp.

As part of the temporary closures, the southbound San Diego Freeway on-ramp at Irvine Center Drive will be shut down, as well as the southbound Santa Ana Freeway on-ramp at Alton Parkway.

The next round of closures will start Tuesday night, on the southbound Interstate 5 between Lake Forest Drive and El Toro Road, including the southbound on-ramps at Lake Forest Drive.

The closures will start at 11:59 p.m. each day, ending at 5 a.m. Friday.

Detour signs will redirect southbound Interstate 5 motorists from Avenida de la Carlota to the southbound freeway on-ramp at El Toro Road.

The interchange reconstruction includes new car-pool lanes, redesigned exits, new access to and from Bake Parkway and additional parallel freeway lanes, resulting in the world’s biggest freeway junction.

The project is being funded mostly with Measure M half-cent sales tax revenue.