Alameda Corridor Bridge Gets Go-Ahead

A regional transportation agency approved a contract Thursday to build one of the last and most vexing projects on the $2.4-billion Alameda Corridor.

The Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority awarded $107 million for a half-mile-long bridge to carry traffic on Pacific Coast Highway over the corridor’s railroad tracks in Wilmington. The agency hired Yeager Skanska Inc. of Riverside as lead construction contractor.

The rail corridor carries cargo from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to rail transfer centers near downtown Los Angeles. The intersection of PCH and the rail line is the last location on the 20-mile corridor where road traffic must stop for train traffic.

The bridge is designed to eliminate that conflict, ease traffic flow and reduce emissions from idling cars and trucks.

The contract is significant because several state and local transportation agencies have sought construction of the bridge for years, but none was willing to fund the project alone.

After lengthy negotiations, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, the state Department of Transportation and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to pay for the project jointly, with the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority managing it.

The construction will close PCH between Terminal Island Freeway and Coil Avenue, starting in May and until the spring of 2004. Traffic will be rerouted around the construction

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation’s two busiest ports, are expected to generate twice as much cargo in the next 10 years.

The Alameda Corridor, which stretches for 10 miles underground to allow traffic to cross above, was completed last year as a way to speed the incoming cargo through communities in south Los Angeles County and on to markets in Los Angeles and throughout the country.