The Abridged version:
- Eastbound Highway 50 will be down two lanes this weekend.
- The 55-hour closure near 7th Street in Sacramento will allow crews to replace a bridge seal, Caltrans said.
- This closure is unrelated to the one that was postponed at the end of January.
Two eastbound lanes of Highway 50 will be offline this weekend, slowing traffic around 7th Street for more than two days.
Caltrans said the reduction, which will close lanes three and four from 10 p.m. Friday night until 5 a.m. Monday morning, is necessary for crews to replace a bridge seal that has reached the end of its operational life.
The move comes as Caltrans is in what it says are the final stages of the years-long Fix50 project.
Unrelated to last month’s postponed closure
At the end of January, the agency planned a weekend closure to complete striping that it said was the “final touches of the main construction.” But just before the closure was set to begin, a spate of rain and cold forced Caltrans to postpone the work.
The striping has not been completed yet, said Sergio Ochoa Sanchez, spokesperson for Caltrans. Crews are waiting on a stretch of dry weather to do that work, so no specific dates have been set.
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In the meantime, Caltrans is hoping to squeeze in this bridge seal replacement, which is unrelated to the striping work, Ochoa Sanchez said. But he cautioned that weather could again change plans if it takes a turn for the worse.
Years of delays
This weekend’s planned closure is the next in a long line of traffic restrictions emerging from the Fix50 project. In December, an Abridged investigation found that rejected concrete contributed to months of delays for the project, which has gone more than two years beyond its initial timeline.
Daniel Hennessy joins Abridged from the California Local News Fellowship. He’s a reporter covering Yolo County.Â