![]() ![]() It will slope up within yards of two apartment buildings and then cross over the southbound freeway lanes before reaching the express lanes in the middle of the freeway. The Mira Mesa ramp will start at the transit hub at Hillery Drive and Westview Parkway. They are part of a $58 million project that includes the Miramar College Transit Station. In total, the new ramps and express lanes cost more than $1 billion, according to transportation officials.Ĭaltrans officials said the Mira Mesa ramps will cost about $20 million to build. ![]() Ross posted her online comments on a recent U-T San Diego article about I-15 express lanes. “When do the majority of the people paying for these roads (solo drivers) get to use them? And why is paying twice a good idea?” said Cee Ross of San Diego, referring to gas taxes and fees paid to drive in the express lanes. Not everyone is satisfied with the indirect benefits of such projects. Rice also said the new ramps in Mira Mesa will ease traffic for local residents by siphoning bus and car traffic away from the traditional freeway ramps. Two sets were built in Escondido and one set each in Rancho Bernardo and Sabre Springs. This is the last of five sets of direct access ramps along the I-15 express lanes. He noted that the average travel time for rush hour drivers along the I-15 express lanes, which run from Escondido to Kearny Mesa, has dropped from 40 minutes to 30 minutes during the past decade as the lanes and several other direct access ramps were completed. Rice, the Caltrans project manager, said construction is a temporary inconvenience that will benefit not just people who use the ramps, but everyone else on I-15. Some nighttime closures will be required on the regular freeway lanes as well, he said. Caltrans expects to close the express lanes during at least one weekend in May to build scaffolding for a flyover bridge, said Mark Bobotis, a Caltrans engineer. ![]() Pain caused by the project is likely to grow in coming weeks. ![]() They will have to do so until the ramps’ expected opening in fall 2014.įreeway shoulders are narrow near the construction site, and some drivers have complained of feeling pinched for space as they commute through the area. That includes Interstate 5 in North County, where a direct access ramp is expected to feed traffic to an express lane corridor from surface streets below the freeway.īack in Mira Mesa, where 17 steel and concrete columns plus excavators and dump trucks dot the I-15 corridor, drivers are learning to live with nearly constant construction. The ramps also are envisioned, in varying forms, for future express lane projects in the region. A similar project is nearly complete on I-805 in Sorrento Valley at Carroll Canyon Road. That network of so-called rapid buses is expected to branch out across the county as other direct-access ramps and express lanes are built.Ĭonstruction started last week on direct access ramps on Interstate 805 at Palomar Street in Chula Vista. Starting next year, the ramps will be used by a new set of express buses that will ferry riders along I-15, from North County communities to job centers in downtown San Diego and Sorrento Valley. ![]()
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