Sierra Highway Pedestrian Bridge & Street Improvements Project
Location
Sierra Highway and Golden Valley Road
City or County Responsible for Project
City of Santa Clarita
Category
Bridge: Efficient and Sustainable Bridge Maintenance, Construction and Reconstruction Projects
Author
Damon Letz
City of Santa Clarita – Public Works
23920 Valencia Boulevard Suite 304, Santa Clarita, CA 91355
661-255-4982
Project Description
The City of Santa Clarita is committed to building vital infrastructures that enrich a growing and diverse community. To date, the City has constructed approximately 80 miles of picturesque trails and over 20 miles of paseos designed for community and recreational use, including walking, riding, and jogging. To support this vision, in partnership with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the federally-funded Sierra Highway Pedestrian Bridge and Street Improvement Project was designed to install a pre-fabricated steel truss pedestrian bridge and constructed street improvements along Sierra Highway. The City of Santa Clarita hosted a public ribbon cutting event to celebrate the completion of the project on March 29, 2019. The new steel-truss pedestrian bridge is the first of its kind in the area and is located near an intersection that receives roughly 60,000 vehicles per day. Street improvements on the west side of Sierra Highway included the installation of new streetlights, and the construction of a new bus turnout and right-turn lane from southbound Sierra Highway onto westbound Golden Valley Road, along with a new sidewalk, bus shelter pad, enhanced access ramps and crosswalks, parkway landscaping, and an extension of an existing median nose. As part of this project, the intersections of Sierra Highway and Rainbow Glen Drive, and Sierra Highway and Golden Valley Road, also received pavement maintenance, traffic striping and signal modifications to allow for U-turns. This project is part of the City’s Santa Clarita 2020 plan of Building and Creating Community. The project construction was separated into four phases, requiring extensive coordination between the City’s project team, utility companies, bridge fabricator, pre-cast panel fabricator and the contractor. The project construction of the bridge bents and abutments, and the scheduling and delivery of pre-cast panels and pre-fabricated steel truss bridge from Arizona were quickly identified as the project controlling factors. An additional challenge was the coordination efforts with the utility companies, the community, and adjacent property owners with the deliveries and placement of the panels and bridge. Within 16 feet of the bridge bents are Southern California Edison (SCE) Distribution and Transmission overhead lines that added a challenged to the project when erecting the panels and the bridge, requiring an SCE representative on-site each time to ground equipment. A 24-hour full street closure for assembly and installation was required. The pre-fabricated steel truss pedestrian bridge and street improvements now provide trail connectivity and safe crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists along Sierra Highway. The bridge is also a great connection for cyclists and pedestrians who use the existing off-street Class I bike paths on Golden Valley Road, which provide miles of trails for recreational and commuter opportunities.
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