Work Begins on New Freeway Project

Preliminary work has begun on the second of seven projects along a 17-mile stretch of the Golden State Freeway through the Santa Clarita Valley, from Calgrove Boulevard to Templin Highway.

The project, which involves construction of a new Valencia Boulevard bridge over the freeway and redesign of onramps and offramps, is expected to be completed by September 2001, Durgesh Regmi, Caltrans project manager, said Wednesday.

The new bridge will be longer and three times wider than the existing structure, with a total of seven lanes. Except for two or three overnight closures, freeway access will not be restricted, Regmi said.

“We will be building the new bridge on the north side of the existing bridge,” he said. After completion of the new structure, traffic will be rerouted to one lane in each direction on that bridge, and the old, existing structure will be torn down. The southern half of the new bridge will then be erected.

The Newhall Land & Farming Co. will cover the entire cost of the $14.2-million project, which will also provide access to Newhall Land’s 1,700-home Westridge development approved by the county Board of Supervisors in April, said Marlee Lauffer, a company spokeswoman.

“That interchange has been substandard for years,” Lauffer said. “The improvements were needed to meet existing as well as future needs of the community.”

Newhall Land is also building the “final link” of The Old Road between Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway parallel to the freeway, she said.

The freeway is the state’s primary north-south traffic artery, carrying 50 million vehicles annually, about 10%-15% of them trucks, Regmi said.

The first improvement project, the rehabilitation and repaving of the freeway surface, is already underway and expected to be completed by August 2001.

Under a 20-year plan, the freeway would eventually have seven lanes in each direction, including two high-occupancy vehicle lanes, one truck lane and three regular traffic lanes on both the northbound and southbound sides.