CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. — There will be a major four-day closure of westbound I-80 between Vallejo and Hercules over Labor Day weekend.
The closure is from Interstate 780 in Vallejo to Highway 4 in Hercules including over the Carquinez Bridge. It's for the Contra Costa I-80 Pavement Rehab Project.
The closure starts Thursday, August 31 at 9 p.m. and westbound Interstate 80 will be closed for roughly 104 hours. The project should wrap up by 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
For the past month, the eastbound side of I-80 has had three full 56-hour closures on the weekends of July 21, August 4, and August 18.
Bart Ney works for District 4 of Caltrans and says I-80 is aging which makes for a rough ride for commuters. They’re replacing concrete in the second and third lanes and fixing other lanes as well during Labor Day weekend.
Caltrans says the weekend and holiday closures shorten the project by reducing the amount of overnight weekly closures needed to complete the work. Ney adds that when the work is done continually, it makes for a smoother ride, lasting up to 40 years.
"What we’re going to be doing during Labor Day is pouring three miles of concrete into 2 lanes, it's a 9000 cubic pour. It's really really big," said Ney.
Ney says they’ll be detouring about 200,000 vehicles, which he says is a drop in the bucket to the 20 years the bridge has served the public. He estimates that 800 million cars have used the bridge since it opened.
Since the westbound lanes of I-80 will be closed over the Carquinez Bridge, there will be detours, but check your traffic maps before you go.
Traffic will be detoured from the Sacramento area along I-5, where people can take 580 or Highway 4. You can also take I-80 all the way down to 37.
In Vallejo, there is a detour at I-80 and I-780, where people can exit eastbound I-780 until they pass Benicia, then take southbound I-680 toward Concord. Finally, take Highway 4 toward Hercules to get back onto westbound I-80.
Ney shared a bit of history about this stretch of I-80. He said the westbound side of the Carquinez Bridge is called the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, named after Bay Area local Alfred 'Al' Zampa, the ironworker who survived a fall off the Golden Gate Bridge while on the job.
"Zampa Bridge is turning 20 this year and it's the only bridge in California named after a blue-collar worker, a laborer. So this is the first time we’re taking it out of service, and we’re taking it out of service on Labor Day. So it’s almost like the bridge gets to have Labor Day off," said Ney.
Caltrans says they have been reaching out to western states so the trucking industry has a heads up on the closure, as I-80 is a major trucking route.
For questions and concerns, you can call the project hotline at (510) 286-0319 or email cc80pave@dot.ca.gov.
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