A stretch of Ocean Boulevard near the Port of Long Beach closed Friday and will remain blocked through the weekend as demolition work on a Terminal Island overpass begins as part of the effort to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge.
Westbound Ocean Boulevard will be closed at Harbor Scenic Drive just west of downtown, while the eastbound road will be closed at State Route 47 on Terminal Island. The road is scheduled to reopen 5 a.m. Monday.
The southbound off-ramp to Ocean Boulevard from the Long Beach (710) Freeway will also be closed, along with the westbound Pico Avenue ramp to Ocean Boulevard. Motorists heading south on the 710 Freeway and hoping to go west toward Terminal Island will be diverted at Pacific Coast Highway, transportation officials said.
The $1 billion project will replace the two-lane span with a new one that has three lanes in each direction, along with a bicycle lane and pedestrian path. The new structure will include two 50-story-high towers and will be one of the tallest cable-stayed bridges in the country -- and the first of its kind in California, officials said.
The 45-year-old span is not tall enough to accommodate today’s high container ships, and its narrow width -- just two lanes in each direction -- is easily clogged with commuter and truck traffic.
“It’s too low to let the biggest ships in the country and the world come to the Port of Long Beach,” Al Moro, chief harbor engineer for the port, told NBC4 in January.
The new bridge will raise clearance over a major port shipping channel from 155 feet to 205 feet, accommodating larger ships needing to access the port's inner harbor.
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The closure is expected to affect thousands of vehicles in the port area, including trucks, but truck access will be maintained to Pier T at the port, officials said.
Westbound traffic on Ocean Boulevard will be diverted at Shoreline Drive to the 710 Freeway, to westbound PCH to southbound routes 103 and 47 back to Ocean Boulevard. Eastbound traffic will be diverted along the same route.
Officials said access to downtown Long Beach on the 710 Freeway will be unaffected.
The project is being built with funding from CalTrans, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Port of Long Beach and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The effort is part of a broader upgrade to the Long Beach port that is expected to cost $4.5 billion over the next ten years.
The design-build project is expected to create about 3,000 jobs a year, on average, for four years, project officials said.
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