ANAHEIM : Freeway Crew Error Causes Lengthy Snarl Traffic Delay

An error in judgment by a crew working on improvements to the Riverside Freeway caused an hourlong traffic delay Tuesday morning, with westbound traffic backed up for about seven miles, according to Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol.

The mix-up occurred when a stripping crew for Traffic Safety, one of the subcontracting companies working on the Riverside Freeway project, ground up more asphalt than they could clean up within the time allotted and had to remain on the job nearly five hours past its 5 a.m. daily shutdown time, said Caltrans spokesman Albert Miranda.

The grinding is needed to erase old stripping, which is being replaced with new stripes that conform to new alignments on the widened road, Miranda said.

The work was being done on a section of the freeway between Kraemer Boulevard and the Orange Freeway.

Miranda said car-pool lanes are being added to the Riverside Freeway and improvements are being made to the on- and off-ramps at Tustin Avenue and at the Kraemer Boulevard and North Glassell Street exchange, all part of the two-year project.

“The project has been going on for almost a year and we’ve only had a few of these (mistakes),” Miranda said. “We try to keep them to a minimum by making sure that contractor and subcontractor coordinate their activities around normal commuter hours.

“This is a onetime incident that is not going to happen again,” he said.