In 2005, Caltrans built the Highway 101 overpass at Sixth Street in Santa Rosa but never built the street under it. Now, Santa Rosa is going to.
On Monday, construction crews will start a $1.1 million project to connect the two stretches of Sixth Street that end at the highway, with completion due in October.
Dave Vandeveer, an associate civil engineer for the city who is overseeing the project, said the work includes the new stretch of road, new sidewalks, landscaping and a stoplight at Davis and Sixth.
That stoplight will be at about the end of the downtown southbound offramp from Highway 101, but Vandeveer said that to avoid traffic backing up the offramp, part of the offramp will be re-striped to two lanes from the current one.
He said drivers shouldn’t encounter any significant traffic delays from the construction.
Vandeveer said Caltrans originally planned to connect the two parts of Sixth Street as part of its Highway 101 widening project but dropped the Sixth Street work to shave costs. Years ago, before Highway 101 was elevated, Sixth Street did connect. Part of the construction project involves digging up the old road now buried.
Once Sixth Street is connected, drivers will have another way to get from the Santa Rosa Plaza area to the Railroad Square neighborhood.
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Elizabeth
Getting rid of the downtown mall would make life better for walkers and drivers. Just set explosives and let it implode!
May 10th, 2012 12:53 pm
Safedriver
If you think that’ll be done in October, I have a bridge to sell you.
May 10th, 2012 4:12 pm
Rex Faktor
This’ll be nice, but to really make some traffic improvements around here….
Where’s that Bellevue overcrossing? That road has also been segmented for decades.
Why are Baker and Hearn overpasses only one lane in each direction? Why don’t Costco and Target have to contribute to their widening? You ever drive in this area in December?
Why doesn’t 12 extend to Summerfield? Even if you want to save Spring Drainage Pond, we could still save a lot of people a lot of time and fuel by avoiding the joke traffic lights on Farmers (they’re not fixed yet, Sprinkle – why the backup at Hoen and Vallejo every AM?)
Yulupa to Farmer’s Lane extension? Guess I’m getting more wishful as I’m going here…
May 10th, 2012 9:27 pm