San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Demolition under way on I-5 bridge at San Elijo Lagoon in Solana Beach
Demolition began last week on the original Interstate 5 bridge across the San Elijo Lagoon, a section of the freeway between Solana Beach and Encinitas where traffic was rerouted last month to prepare for the work.
Most of the work takes place overnight from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays for safety reasons and is expected to take four to six weeks to complete. Also, a full overnight closure of Manchester Avenue will be required for the work through March 12.
The Manchester Avenue closure is necessary to remove sections of the bridge directly above the road. On- and off-ramps at Manchester will remain open with detour signs posted to avoid the closure.
About 4,000 cubic yards of concrete, enough to fill an olympic-sized swimming pool, taken from the bridge built in 1963 will be recycled into roadway base material, according to a Caltrans news release. About 750,000 pounds of steel, the weight of 62 elephants, will be separated and recycled.
Caltrans rerouted northbound and southbound traffic to the recently completed outer lanes of the bridge in early February to prepare for the demolition and reconstruction of the interior.
When completed in 2022, the wider bridge will have one more carpool lane in each direction, north and south, from Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach to state Route 78 in Oceanside.
The new bridge also will be longer than the old structure to improve tidal flow in the lagoon. It also will have a bicycle and pedestrian bridge suspended beneath the roadway that will link users to the network of trails along the lagoon and a future coastal bike trail.
Construction of the freeway bridge is part of $850 million in related transportation and mitigation projects along what’s known as the North Coast Corridor.
The speed limit in the 8-mile construction zone along the freeway was reduced a year ago from 65 mph to 55 mph and is expected to stay there until 2022.
The bridge replacement comes as the $120 million restoration of the wetlands habitat in the lagoon nears an end. The lagoon restoration began in 2017 and is largely funded with money from the North Coast Corridor program.