A large construction project aimed at completing a series of bridge deck repairs on Highway 99 in Sacramento is right on schedule despite its massive scale, officials say.
The road closures for these repairs began on Friday, June 11th and are expected to last through Wednesday, June 16th.
“Today, we’re just pouring the concrete, adhering it to the girders and then later on this afternoon we’re going to be putting on a polyester overlay,” said Caltrans public information officer Angela DaPrato said to KCRA News.
“This is a very special concrete that hopefully will withstand the test of time because there’s a lot of freight and a lot of high traffic lines that go through here.”
Although the road closure may seem large, DaPrato says much of the work was done offsite to prevent even more extensive road closures, and that closing down such a large stretch of interstate is necessary to complete the project in a matter of days rather than weeks. With the all-encompassing closures, crews are able to keep all of their building materials on-site and ready to go, rather than carting them in and out each morning to allow for the reopening of the roadway each day.
“Really, all they’re doing is assembling,” DaPrato explained. “It is like a big puzzle, but a puzzle that already has numbers. So it’s not going to take a lot of time to figure out where everything goes. It’s almost like a cheat sheet.”
“We’re gonna get in there, do our work and get out and make sure motorists have it ready to go when California re-opens,” DaPrato said.