Caltrans officials and elected officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday celebrating the completion of a $67 million project intended to reduce congestion and enhance safety on the Golden State (5) Freeway running through Santa Clarita.
The project extended the southbound truck lanes and added mixed-flow lanes in both directions of the heavily traveled travel corridor.
“I-5 is the backbone of California’s freeway system and is vital to our economy,” said Caltrans District 7 Director Carrie Bowen. “The widening of the I-5 and the extension of the southbound truck lanes represents an important investment in our transportation infrastructure that will provide improved mobility, faster travel times for commuters and more efficient goods movement for years to come.”
Work on the project began in May 2012, and it added it added a fifth mixed flow lane to the northbound Golden State Freeway between the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway and the Gavin Canyon undercrossing, a distance of 1.4 miles.
The 3.7 miles of improvements on the southbound Golden State Freeway included a mixed-flow lane between Pico Canyon Road and Lyons Avenue and a new segment to the truck lane that begins north of Weldon Canyon and merges with the existing truck lanes of the Antelope Valley Freeway connector.
More than 216,000 vehicles use this segment of the Golden State Freeway every day, including 19,000 trucks.
— City News Service