The fourth and final street closure of the San Mateo Bridges Replacement Project will begin this coming Monday, March 21. The Poplar Avenue bridge area, a main thoroughfare to U.S. Interstate Highway 101, will be closed for up to eight weeks to through traffic.
During the closure on Poplar Avenue from Ramona Street to Claremont Street, Caltrain will establish detour signs for pedestrians and motorists to help with traffic flow. The Poplar Avenue rail bridge replacement is expected to occur the weekend of April 16. Construction activities involve assembling the new bridge structure, replacing the old steel structure with the new steel structure and demolishing the old bridge structure on site.
In general, weekday work hours will occur from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and additional weekend hours, as needed, are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Santa Inez bridge replacement was completed last month.
Caltrain, in cooperation with the City of San Mateo, is replacing the four rail bridges located at Tilton, Monte Diablo, Santa Inez and Poplar Avenues, which are all more than 100 years old and no longer meet current seismic safety standards. The $38 million project will ensure that the aging bridges are safe and equipped to meet the region’s future transportation needs, including new electrified rail service, and improved traffic flow on city streets. The project is expected to be complete by October 2016.
For more information about the project, visit the website at www.caltrain.com/smbridges.
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About Caltrain: Owned and operated by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, Caltrain provides commuter rail service from San Francisco to San Jose, with limited commute service to Gilroy. Caltrain has enjoyed five years of consecutive monthly ridership increases, surpassing more than 60,000 average weekday riders earlier this year. While the Joint Powers Board assumed operating responsibilities for the service in 1992, the railroad celebrated 150 years of continuous passenger service in 2014. Planning for the next 150 years of Peninsula rail service, Caltrain is on pace to electrify the corridor, reduce diesel emissions by 97 percent by 2040 and add more service to more stations.
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