Heading to Lake Tahoe? Fixes coming all along I-80
Q I have some questions arising from our recent trip to Lake Tahoe and would love to hear anything you can add: Kathy Craig Lafayette A With Labor Day weekend approaching, Interstate 80 and other routes may turn into parking lots from the Bay Bridge to Lake Tahoe. So fire away. Q Interstate 80 eastbound outside Colfax: Looks like a lot of trees have been cut down. Is this stretch going to be widened? Kathy Craig A Yes, and we all should like this. Caltrans is making way for an additional right-hand lane to accommodate trucks as they slowly make their way up the steep grade. The 3-mile truck climbing lane project will also add 10-foot-wide shoulders, widen the Cape Horn Undercrossing, construct a 1,100-foot retaining wall separating Magra Road from I-80 and result in other roadway improvements.
This is a $50.3 million job that should be worth every cent when done in late 2018. Next question. Q Highway 89 just south of Emerald Bay: I have been on that road for over 50 years and for the life of me I don’t understand what they’re thinking not to have guardrails! It scares the living daylights out of me. You would think that at some point there would have been enough money to do this. Kathy Craig
A You won’t like this answer. The $13 million water-quality improvement project on Highway 89 in Emerald Bay has run into new rules prohibiting the use of water mitigation funds on construction not related directly to water improvements. As a result, improvements that provided no direct stormwater quality upgrades were eliminated such as left-turn lanes, retaining walls and guardrails. To install guardrails along this section of Highway 89 would require a separate project. To date, no such project has been programmed. Next question. QI-
80 between Vacaville and Sacramento: My husband’s biggest gripe is that there is lots of room to have four lanes the whole way. But we now have lots of messy traffic due to the capricious switching between three and six lanes. Will this ever be fixed? Kathy Craig
A Not anytime soon. This is a tough area with, as you said, as few as three lanes and as many as six. Over several years, Caltrans has added and improved several connections from eastbound and westbound I-80 to Interstate 505 and Route 13.
Currently, the focus of construction is at the 80-680-12 interchange in Fairfield, where Caltrans is nearly done with the first of seven measures to improve ramps in the area. There is no major project planned for more lanes on I-80 between Vacaville and Davis.
However, there is good news east of there, on I-80 in Sacramento from the Sacramento River east to Watt Avenue. By the end of the year, the $133 million job to add carpool lanes and merging lanes and repave more than 10 miles of roadway will be done. But this weekend, Caltrans warns drivers that there will be serious delays on this route because of the construction work. Enjoy the ride to Lake Tahoe.