On a recent media tour of the Highway 101 construction project in Rohnert Park,
Caltrans, local transportation and construction officials and media representatives
check out a bridge that will be the southbound offramp to Wilfred Avenue.
pressdemocrat.com photo by James Fremgen

Highway 101’s construction zone in Rohnert Park is the latest challenge for drivers, but there’s hope.

In about three months, Caltrans spokesman Robert Haus said, a new southbound offramp to Wilfred Avenue will open, taking drivers onto a new bridge over Commerce Boulevard. At the same time, the Santa Rosa Avenue overpass will reopen, but it no longer will connect to 101. Instead, it’ll meet up with the Wilfred offramp. As a result, drivers on Santa Rosa Avenue wanting to get onto 101 will have to go down to Wilfred and then take the 101 onramp there.

Haus said the $40 million widening of 101 from Santa Rosa Avenue to Rohnert Park Expressway is on track to finish on schedule in 2012.

Once complete, the entire project will have used 60,000 metric tons of asphalt, 182,000 cubic meters of fill, 11,000 cubic meters of concrete and 3 million kilograms (6.6 million pounds) of steel, Haus said.

Crews are making steady progress on the new northbound overpass at Commerce Boulevard, with concrete and steel columns sunk 100 feet deep. Once that overpass is complete, traffic both ways will be rerouted to it while the old southbound overpass is knocked down and a new one built.

The concrete and steel columns that will hold up Highway 101's northbound overpass
at Commerce Boulevard in Rohnert Park are sunk 100 feet deep
into the ground. pressdemocrat.com photo by James Fremgen