The public only have until May 26 to comment on thepotential closure
If you regularly use the Vincent Thomas Bridge, you’re probably going to have to take a different route for a while — but not until 2025.
Representatives from Caltrans are planning a partial or complete shutdown of the bridge, which connects San Pedro to Long Beach, Terminal Island and the ports. Caltrans representatives spoke about this at a virtual meeting held on May 4.
At the beginning, Brad Jensen, the meeting facilitator, said that the public comment period began April 13, and would end on May 12. However, many commentators at the meeting said they had only heard about this project that day, and asked for the public comment period to be extended. Because of the outcry, Osama Megalla, chief of the office of project management at Caltrans, announced at the end of the meeting that the public comment period would be extended two weeks, until May 26.
The purpose of the shutdown is to replace the deck of the bridge, and extend the bridge’s lifespan. The bridge has had repairs before, with Caltrans maintenance crews replacing damage on the bridge with concrete patches.
“The patches cover about 15% of the total bridge area,” said Rimma Tebeleva, project manager for the project.
The bridge has been in service for 60 years, and is rapidly deteriorating because of heavy truck traffic, Tebeleva said. About 53,000 vehicles cross the bridge every day, about 4,600 of which are trucks.
“If this condition is not addressed, it will affect the structural integrity of the deck, and ultimately the safety of the traveling public,” Tebeleva said.
In addition, the railings and median concrete barrier are not up to current safety standards and will also be replaced if the project is approved.
If Caltrans shuts down the bridge completely, it will take about nine months to a year to complete construction. If Caltrans does not shut down the bridge completely, and just keeps one lane open, it will take from 18 months to two years to finish construction, Tebeleva said. The bridge normally has two lanes in each direction, and will shut down three if this option is taken. It will need to have night and weekend closures, or construction will take up to two and a half years. Another option is to keep two lanes open. This could last two to two and half years, and could take up to three years without night and weekend closures.
Or it could just do nothing.
“Under the no build alternative, no work will be done, and the life of the Vincent Thomas Bridge will not be extended,” Tebeleva said.
The project is currently in its environmental review and project approval phase, which will end in May 2024. The design phase will follow, and should be completed in July 2025, with construction expected to begin in October 2025.
“We plan to open [the] bridge for traffic by end of March of 2027,” Tebeleva said.
Jinrong Wang, senior bridge engineer with Caltrans, said that while shutting down the bridge completely will cause traffic problems, the deck will have less joints, and the deck integrity will be better. Caltrans will remove the old deck, and place the new deck.
Jason Roach, senior environmental planner at Caltrans, said that the environmental review he is working on is about the impact of redirecting traffic in the surrounding areas.
“We’re doing an in-depth traffic study as we speak to show the best possible routes to detour traffic during these long-term closures,” Roach said.
Denis Katayama, senior transportation engineer of traffic operations, gave a list of detours that could be used if the bridge is closed, either a full-time closure or just on nights and weekends. One is Harry Bridges Boulevard to Alameda Street, then to Anaheim Street, then to Henry Ford Avenue, and onto to the route 47 Terminal Island freeway. An alternative would be to reroute traffic from Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH, to Alameda Street, then to Henry Ford Avenue, and from there to Route 47 Terminal Island Freeway.
Ashley Hernandez, a Wilmington resident and organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, said that increasing truck traffic on PCH and Anaheim would be very dangerous.
“I’m not hyperbolizing when I say people will die,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said that Anaheim is down to one lane on both sides in Wilmington, and that increasing truck traffic would be detrimental to people crossing the street, including children. She said that every street trucks pass over, there are holes.
“Trucks are going to fall into those holes,” Hernandez said. “People are going to tip into those holes.”
Magali Sanchez-Hall, an environmental justice activist, said that Wilmington cannot continue to carry the burden of environmental pollution. She spoke of the many trucks that pass by on PCH, and said that while there is plenty of public space, none of the children use it.
“The kids are not outside, and guess why?” Sanchez-Hall said. “Because our kids on the east side of Wilmington have asthma and you see the parks empty because no kid can go out there and play.”
Roach said that an initial environmental report will be released in December 2023, which people can comment on, and a final report will be released in winter 2024. He said that winter 2024 is when the final decision for the project will be made.
Luke Klipp, senior transportation deputy for Supervisor Janice Hahn, said it wasn’t clear what people were commenting on at what time.
“There’s comment now until, as we’ve just learned, May 26,” Klipp said. “And then comment again at the end of the year when there’s a draft environmental document.”
Wilmington resident Valerie Rodriguez, who was one of the attendees who only heard of the meeting that day, criticized the project for its lack of Spanish outreach to Wilmington residents.
“Our community, it’s not all about social media, so they don’t know,” Hernandez said. “They’re very old-fashioned, so we need some kind of outreach so our community can know what’s going on.”
Roach said there were 87 people at the virtual meeting, and that a prior in-person meeting about the project only had about a third as many people.
James Campeau, activist and San Pedro resident, said that Caltrans should shut down the bridge completely for a year.
“You’ve got to do it in a one year time-span, because it’s just going to be three years of traffic instead of one year of traffic detours,” Campeau said.