Staff Writer
For traffic on Cherry Avenue, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Starting in January, major construction will begin along the road from 19th Street to Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) as the first phase of a long-awaited project to alleviate a bottleneck that has caused vehicles to back up during rush-hour traffic for decades.
The first phase of the $6.7-million Cherry Avenue widening project, which is solely funded by state and federal grants and has been in the works for nearly 14 years, is set to begin in January and last for four months, said Steve Myrter, the City’s public works director, during the Signal Hill City Council on Dec. 16.
Myrter said that, during the first phase of construction, half of Cherry Avenue will be shut down. He noted that this will make the street, which already suffers from gridlock, to have even less capacity than it has currently.
“What you will see out there in January is a phased approach, because we have to tear all that concrete out,” Myrter said. “We essentially have to shut half the road down at a time…So, needless to say! it won’t have nearly the capacity it has now.”
The Council during the meeting unanimously approved awarding a $226,080 contract to AndersonPenna Partners, Inc. to provide construction management services for the first phase of the project.
The first phase, he said, includes removing 18 inches of concrete on a section of the street and replacing it with asphalt and installing a new storm-drain pipeline that will eventually prevent flooding at PCH and Cherry Avenue during heavy rains. He said a new pipeline would divert storm water to Chittick Field.
Though the City had scheduled the project to begin this summer, Myrter said there were a number of hurdles the City encountered in launching the project, including meeting federal requirements and having the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) sign off on a new “temporary” traffic signal to be installed at Cherry Avenue and PCH.
The regional project calls for widening Cherry Avenue, which is often used as a main thoroughfare to the 405 Freeway, by adding two new traffic lanes in each direction, as well as a new, shared right-turn lane southbound at PCH in addition to the existing right-turn-only lane.
Myrter said the City will be able to create two new lanes of traffic in each direction since it purchased 10 feet of right-of-ways that will now allow the City to prohibit parking along Cherry Avenue from 19th Street to PCH.
“The essence of this project is to reconfigure the lanes so we’ll essentially have two travel-through lanes in each direction, north and south,” he said. “The issue right now is if you go above 20th [Street], you have Cherry Avenue coming down two lanes. It transitions to one lane right now, and that’s the bottleneck. Plus, it’s not very efficient! This project was created to finally go ahead and widen Cherry Avenue down to Pacific Coast Highway, with two lanes in each direction, which is what it was always intended to do.”
Myrter said the City has developed a traffic-detour plan that encourages drivers to avoid Cherry Avenue during the construction by taking alternate routes, including Orange Avenue, Atlantic Avenue and Redondo Avenue, when traveling from Long Beach through Signal Hill.
He said the City plans to install flashing electronic boards, provide weekly or daily updates about the project on the City’s website, conduct community meetings and issue public announcements.
“We’re just trying to get people to rethink travel plans over the next four months,” Myrter said.
He added that the City of Long Beach in October began its own infrastructure-improvement project along Cherry Avenue, beginning at Ocean Boulevard, that Myrter said has likely already prompted drivers to take a different route when getting on the 405 Freeway.
“A lot of people are probably already starting to change their travel habits to the freeway,” he said. “So that might help us a little bit in trying to keep that intersection from getting too bogged down.”
Bill Zimmerman, the City’s traffic engineer, said “local traffic only” signs will be placed at certain streets that intersect PCH, however, he said drivers will be encouraged to utilize the businesses in the area that will remain accessible during construction.
“It will help reinforce that it is a neighborhood, that we really don’t want the cut-through traffic going through at that point,” he said. “If you are going to go to the 405 [Freeway] from Long Beach, we also want to give you other opportunities to find other routes to get there more efficiently.”
