Come to find out, when the 210 Freeway fully opens later this year, and the extension to Highway 30 in San Bernardino is finally finished (at a still undetermined date), access to and from another major artery running through the region will be severely limited - making the 210 less than the lifesaver for commuters it should have been.
But don't fret. San Bernardino Associated Governments, or Sanbag, reassures the public that the opening of the long-awaited interstate won't be delayed. You can count on that.
It's just that two major connectors between I-210 and Interstate 215, which would have stood to make the lives of motorists that much easier because of uninterrupted travel, won't be ready for yet another 3 to four years.
A geologist who was working in the area after the contract to build the freeway was awarded back in late 1999 or early 2000 just happened to notice a major problem that could, er, radically shake up freeway construction plans.
Seems two
"If the geologist hadn't seen it," said Sanbag's director of freeway construction, Darren Kettle, "(the freeway) might have been built like that."
So now, the agency has set about redesigning the elevated "flyovers" to compensate.
Thank heaven for accidents of mercy. But we would have thought that that, er, connection would have been made before then.
"The San Andreas Fault and San Jacinto Fault being so close to the freeway and the nature of the soils means those elevated columns would need to be designed to withstand the seismic problem that could be produced by those two faults," Kettle said.
Such major brainstorms can be awesome, when they come with the requisite amount of foresight. But in this case, it's more like shock, and after-shock.
While we're glad that extra precautions are being taken now that the potential danger has been noted, how is it that no one took into account the existence of the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults long before now - at least, in time to mitigate for the 210's final grand opening?
As it is, when the 210 officially opens later this fall, it will not be possible to go directly from the 210 east to the 215 Freeway south, nor will it be possible to go from the northbound 215 to the westbound 210.
Get ready for the delays---------------------------------------------------------------------
BS Ranch Perspective:
Let me see, and Engineer that works for any of these planning outfits make a great deal of money, and they cannot figure out that they are in a seismic active area as the Inland Empire? The Inland Empire has only had an Earthquake every year in some cases two, and there has been a major quake, or what was considered to be a major quake within every 7 years.
Reading this article about the "Cracks" in the development, has raised a few questions of my own. Such as, if this has been in the planning stages for the last Sixty (60) Years then some one, did what? Planned it the Sixty years ago, and then they closed the file on it, and dusted it off when they started to decide to start the Construction on it.
Now that they are 89% done with the last portion of the 210 Extension that will complete stretch form Valencia to Redlands, it is now that they come to the conclusions that they are going to be late finishing the Freeway? This is so puzzling since they had so many opportunities to see the problems with the construction that they had already done and it is now that they find that it there is going to be delays, Even after the announcements that they were going to open it at the end of June, beginning of August!!
I am not happy, Especially being one that lives on the Detour that sends the Traffic Right in front of my house, until the figure out what they are going to do to finish this job.
SANBAG has stated that there will not be a delay, will you believe them? or the reality of what really happens??
BS Ranch
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