Cory Bilicko
Managing Editor
The first portion of the Cherry Avenue widening project, in which traffic lanes and turning lanes are being added between Pacific Coast Highway and 19th Street, was finished on Tuesday.
Signal Hill Public Works Director Steve Myrter told the Signal Tribune Wednesday that the first portion of the Cherry Avenue widening project, in which traffic lanes and turning lanes are being added between Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and 19th Street, had been completed the day before.
“The project’s being built in two halves,” Myrter said. “The west side was the side that was actually being widened, so that’s the property we bought. That section of roadway is now essentially complete.”
Myrter said the traffic signal at the corner of Cherry and PCH has been replaced but its long-term power source is not yet in use.
“The permanent traffic signals are now in place,” Myrter said. “Southern California Edison has to relocate the power supply, and they will not be able to do that until approximately 10 days from now. When they do that, we will activate the new traffic signal. It will operate like it’s supposed to. Right now it’s operating as a temporary [one] still.”
He explained that the signal is currently operating from a temporary power source from “the old system.”
He explained that rebuilding the traffic signal at that intersection was a substantial part of the undertaking and that efforts will now focus on the last piece of the puzzle— expanding the east side of Cherry Avenue.
The widening and traffic-signal work are part of a joint project between the cities of Signal Hill and Long Beach, since much of the road work being done is actually in Long Beach, but Signal Hill acquired the funding. The $6.7-million project began last January to alleviate a bottleneck that has caused vehicles to back up during rush-hour traffic for decades. It is being funded by state and federal grants.
Though the City had scheduled the project to begin last summer, there were a number of hurdles encountered in initiating 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, according to Myrter.
“The project itself will not be opened up fully— all four lanes plus turning lanes— for, I would estimate, six weeks,” Myrter said. He explained that, as drivers travel southbound or northbound on Cherry Avenue, there will be two lanes that cross PCH.
“If you’re going south, you have now two lanes that will go through plus a turning lane to go left,” he said. “So, now you don’t have to wait… you have one through lane that you can turn left on, you have one through lane that can go through, and you have a right-turn lane that can go through, and you don’t have to wait. You’ll just go right on through.”
Myrter said that Cherry Avenue will merge into one lane about 300 feet south of Cherry Avenue.
“What this project will really do is… if you’re going down the hill and you’re heading [to turn onto PCH], which a lot of people are doing, [you] will no longer have to wait with the people who want to go through,” Myrter said. “That’s where the huge benefit is.”
