The Highway 101 interchange at Marsh Road will become a construction zone on Sept. 25, when Caltrans is scheduled to break ground on a two-year project to improve safety and ease congestion.
The improvements come after more than a year of delay, and eight years after voters approved the project, part of the San Mateo County Measure A half-cent sales tax.
"I'm relieved. (But) I'm still waiting for the dirt to turn," said Menlo Park Transportation Manger Don Dey. The interchange, popular with Dumbarton Bridge drivers, is in Menlo Park at the border with Redwood City.
Caltrans is overseeing the $7.3 million project, and contributing 27 percent of the cost. The San Mateo County Transportation Authority, which administers the half-cent sales tax, is paying 73 percent, said authority program manager Edgar Ugarte.
Caltrans will widen the two-lane bridge over Highway 101 to four lanes; remove, relocate or improve the ramps; lengthen the lanes for merging where drivers are both exiting and entering the freeway; and add metering lights.
There will be two lanes to cross the freeway throughout construction, although ramps will occasionally be closed, probably at night, Dey said. Ugarte said construction usually slows traffic.
The Marsh Road interchange handles about 20,000 cars a day, Ugarte said, "but the main problem is the congestion that occurs at rush hour and forces the backup of cars onto 101. I think it's the worst (interchange in the county) so far."
"The project was initiated because of all the safety concerns at the Marsh interchange," Dey said. The backup blocks freeway traffic and contributes to accidents, and a number of accidents occur on the short merge lanes, Dey said.
"Now we want to approach the transportation authority to start working through the same process with the Willow interchange," Dey said. "It too has a lot of the serious safety concerns. Both Marsh and Willow are very old highway designs that are due to be replaced and upgraded."
The project's final design was finished more than a year ago, but the project is only starting now because it took time for Caltrans and the transportation authority to reach a cooperative agreement, and because both agencies needed to find more money when the bids came in 25 percent higher than the engineering estimates, said Bijan Sartipi, Caltrans district office chief for Peninsula design.
--Heather Rock Woods
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