The West County Connectors (WCC) project is a joint partnership between OCTA and Caltrans linking high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes/carpool lanes on the San Diego Freeway (I-405) with those on the Garden Grove Freeway (SR-22) and the San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605) to create a seamless carpool connection among the three freeways.
Construction is well underway for the West Segment as crews continue reconstruction efforts on the west half of the Seal Beach Boulevard bridge.
As part of bridge construction, a settlement period is often required, allowing the earth to rest or “settle” before crews can begin construction the new bridge foundation.
As the settlement period came to a close, crews then began pile driving, which is a common method of constructing bridge foundations. To support the bridge, steel or concrete beams are driven into the ground by a large hammer mounted on a crane, until they reach a hard layer of earth beneath the foundation.
Crews recently completed pile driving and will soon begin placing falsework, also known as the temporary bridge support structures, to construct the west half of the bridge deck. The first phase of the Seal Beach Boulevard bridge is anticipated to be complete in early fall 2013, and the bridge will be restored back to two lanes in each direction at that time.
Crews also are approaching another major milestone as construction of the southbound I-405 connector to the eastbound SR-22 freeway continues to move along on schedule. Crews are continuing to remove falsework at night, and this will be ongoing for the next several weeks. This also requires crews to take full closures of both the north and southbound lanes of the I-405 freeway.
Once construction of the new connector is complete, the old connector must be demolished. Since the southbound I-405 / eastbound SR-22 connector crosses over the I-405 freeway (near Valley View Street), portions of the eastbound SR-22, northbound I-405 and southbound I-405 freeways will be closed for approximately 20 hours in order to demolish the old structure.
This extended closure is tentatively scheduled for June 2013 and the WCC outreach team continues to reach out to the community by presenting updates to community groups and local city council along the project corridor.
The WCC outreach team encourages the public to keep connected to the project’s progress by visiting www.octa.net/wcc.
People also may obtain the latest closure details and detour routes by visiting www.octa.net/wccdetourmap or by contacting Sarah King at wccproject@octa.net or 714.560.5376.
