Rohnert Park Freeway Work

[jgaffney]

I didn't see any coverage of this in the PeeDee, but anybody who drives on 101 through Rohnert Park should know.

The freeway contractor has finished enough of the new bridges on 101 at Golf Course/Wilfred that Caltrans will let him start moving the traffic lanes over on Friday, July 22. North- and southbound through traffic will be moved over to the new bridge on the east side - the Golf Course Drive side. The South Santa Rosa Ave ramp will be opened back up and routed onto a connector road, along with southbound traffic that wants to exit at Wilfred Avenue. The Wilfred Avenue ramp will be squared off, instead of curving over to the signal at Redwood Drive.

Commerce Blvd under the freeway will be closed for about 2 weeks while the contractor demo's the old freeway bridge. Local traffic going from Golf Course Drive to the west side of the freeway will be routed down Commerce Blvd, across at Rohnert Park Expy, then back up Redwood Drive (an easier way will be to head north on Roberts Lake Drive, then get on the freeway at South Santa Rosa Ave). Local traffic going from the west side to Golf Course Drive will be routed south on the freeway, off at Rohnert Park Expy, then back onto the freeway to exit at Golf Course Drive. This will only last for the 2 weeks or so that it takes the contractor to demo the old freeway bridge.

The next step will be to break up the old roadway that we have been driving on, and then bring in dirt to fill in the "canyon" between the two elevated sections. This will take quite a while since it requires a lot of dirt to fill in the gap, and because the dirt has to settle and be compacted before the contractor can pave the roadway. The third bridge will be built while the dirt operation is going on.

The best part of this, for those of us who live in Rohnert Park, is that the next step will connect Golf Course Drive to Wilfred Avenue under the freeway. That mess we have been driving through, going under the freeway at Commerce Blvd, then doubling back on Redwood Drive, will go away. I always found it amusing that, when you came up to the signal on Golf Course Drive at Commerce Blvd, to go north, you turned south, and to go south, you turned north. All that will go away. The northbound ramps will be moved back to where they were, at the signal just south of Golf Course Drive, while the southbound ramps will be a normal intersection located between Redwood Drive and the freeway. If you are southbound on the freeway and want to go east on Golf Course Drive, you'll come down to the bottom of the ramp and just make a left turn.

The completion date for the construction contract is next summer, but the traffic lanes will be open in both directions sooner than that. And, if you are like many drivers who are scared to death to drive through the canyon between the two elevated sections - especially next to a truck - that's going away soon.

Here's the Caltrans website for the project:

www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/wilfredave/

Check out the video simulation.

[jgaffney]

Here's a (somewhat fuzzy) picture of what it looks like today. This picture was taken from the South Santa Rosa Ave overcrossing.



You can see how easy it will be to shift the northbound lanes over to the new bridges. The southbound lanes will be a little more exciting.

BTW, the article in Sunday's PeeDee, at the very end, said that the CHP will be watching speeds through the area during the changeover. So, if you're like me and usually press the limit, think twice about that. The State and local governments are looking more and more to fines as a source of revenue. You may find a speeding ticket is much more expensive than it used to be. And the sneaky little buggers are using motorcycle officers with hand-held radars now.

[subdjoe]

And their 'stealth' cars that don't have any of the usual easy to spot marks and are anything but the usual Ford Crown Victoria.

[jgaffney]

The contractor has completed the change to the southbound lanes. In the past, the southbound left lane merged into the center lane just before the South Santa Rosa Avenue overcrossing. That was a major cause of the Todd Road backup that occurred every afternoon: people don't merge to the right nearly as well as they merge to the left. Now, the right lane turns into an exit-only lane, and the left and center lane continue over the new Golf Course Drive bridge. If you're not intimidated by the narrower lanes, it's a very smooth drive.However, many people are intimidated by the change, so it's a pretty slow transition right now. Give them another couple of weeks and they'll get used to it.

In the meanwhile, here's a tip: If you stay in the right lane, you exit just about where the South Santa Rosa Ave ramp entered the freeway. That ramp is now open again, and it becomes a second lane on the transition road. People getting off at Wilfred Ave merge over to the right, but people getting on at South Santa Rosa Ave continue straight in the left lane. Stay in the left lane. Watch out for people coming on at the Wilfred ramp because they have a sharp right turn and they tend to flair over into the left through lane. The through lane then narrows down to about 10 feet and jogs back and forth slightly before becoming a third lane on the freeway right before the Rohnert Park Expressway offramp. If you're confident, you can blast through there at 50-60 MPH, and rejoin the freeway scrum just above the RPX offramp.