September 5,2014
Granite Construction is the apparent low bidder to widen the LOVR interchange .Watsonville- based Granite’s bid came in around half a million lower than the engineer’s estate around $17 .1 million.The Granite bid was $16.57 million says the city of San Luis Obispo project manager Jason Bennecke. “We are expecting the City Council to approve the contract September 16” says Jason with work on the long awaited project starting in October. Construction is expected to last 18 months to fix what everyone agrees is the towns worst bottleneck.
Bennecke expects“traffic to get worse before it gets better” as a result of the impacts of the construction project set to widen the interchange to 4 lanes as well as adding bike lanes.
”We are proposing a major public outreach” to help alleviate expected congestion. The city has already launched a new website – lovr101.org – for public information.The website promises that “Traffic relief is on the way for the busy Los Osos Valley Road/U.S. 101 interchange in the City of San Luis Obispo! In addition to improvements on the northbound and southbound ramps, we’re constructing a new two-lane bridge over the 101 to add more capacity to the existing 52-year old overcrossing.”
Plans include offering a 511 phone number during business hours for advice on how to navigate through all this with info in real time. Another idea is to offer parents a dropping off point for kids heading to the middle school that is west of the interchange. A drop-off on the east side of the freeway would offer a bus that can take kids to school.This would decrease school-bound traffic that clogs the street at certain hours.
Besides the new car and bike lanes the new bridge will offer wide sidewalks to accommodate foot traffic as well as new entry on-ramps that will help speed traffic as you join Hwy 101.
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