Late-night drivers navigating the border between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties may have noticed something odd at the Santa Maria River Bridge the night of Oct. 24.
Construction crews were scheduled to detour southbound vehicles off of and back onto Highway 101 via the Highway 166 off-ramp between 9 p.m. and midnight that night.
The planned detour was to allow for the southbound lanes to shift; drivers heading into Santa Maria from the north will find themselves driving on the newly built median, a realignment that will be in place for the next six months while crews improve the southbound lanes already in place.
The end goal is to widen the bridge from two to three lanes in each direction, to resurface the existing lanes, and to add a bicycle path behind a concrete barrier on the southbound side.
On that note, Caltrans is reminding cyclists to be aware of limited shoulder space on the bridge throughout this construction phase, and recommends that riders biking southbound detour along Thompson Avenue to Highway 166 East to Bull Canyon Road to Donovan Road. Northbound cyclists can detour along Donovan Road to Bull Canyon Road to Highway 166 West to Thompson Avenue.
The bridge project—contracted to Flatiron West, Inc. of San Marcos for $31 million—is estimated to be about 65 percent complete, and should wrap up in early 2014.
See Caltrans’ live streaming video of the Santa Maria River Bridge at video.dot.ca.gov. \s
—Ryan Miller
