Repairs to Close Westbound Freeway

The westbound lanes of the Ronald Reagan Freeway from Madera Road in Simi Valley to Collins Drive in Moorpark will be closed for repairs Friday and Saturday nights this week, state Department of Transportation officials said.

The lanes will be closed from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night for Caltrans workers to fix cracks in the roadway.

“We have slabs that have been cracked or upheaved or in fairly poor shape,” said Fred Young, an engineer with Caltrans. “We’re replacing them with new cement, which should cure in about three hours, and then we can open it back up to traffic.”

The cracked slabs are only on the westbound side of the freeway; no work is scheduled on the eastbound side, Young said.

Detour signs have been posted east of Madera Road to show closure dates and times, Young said.

Drivers approaching Madera during the closure can exit on Madera, go south to Easy Street / New Los Angeles Avenue, and continue west to Collins, where they can rejoin the freeway.

Cost of the entire project is $680,000; the tab for this weekend’s repairs is $120,000.

When an entire side of a freeway must to be closed, Caltrans does the work at night to inconvenience fewer drivers, Young said.

“Since it is a two-lane highway, there’s really not that much room to work with,” he said. A single-lane closure, he added, “would not be safe as far as the workers are concerned.”

The contractor, Peterson Chase General of Irvine, chose this weekend to close the freeway because it had several other projects in the area, Young said.

Work on California 118 will continue through Tuesday night, but will not include any more closures, Young said.