Cathedral City is constructing new bridges, yes new bridges that will provide twenty-four hour, all weather safe passage across the Whitewater River. These concrete diaphragm girder bridges will enhance the City’s roadway network and will improve your driving experience.
Date Palm Bridge Widening
As many of you have seen, the Date Palm Bridge Expansion Project is well underway. This $20 million bridge widening Project started last June 2017 and is scheduled to be completed on September 21, 2018. The Project will widen the existing Date Palm Drive Bridge at the Whitewater River from 4 to 6 lanes, add bike lanes and sidewalk on each side, have a decorative railing and provide a roadway section in conformance with the City’s General Plan. The Project will improve safety and reduce congestion and bring the Bridge into compliance with the latest seismic code requirements.
The Bridge will also include improvements to the Whitewater River Channel, all to protect the new bridge during flooding events. The addition of new support piers required the construction of several flood water scour countermeasures in the river bottom, including articulated concrete block mats that will move with the channel bottom. The new piers were placed into the channel within a series of 24-inch cast-in-drilled-hole piles.
Additional project features include improvements to the approach roadway, slope protection, and accommodations for the CV Link crossing under the southern bridge abutment.
Currently, the bridge Contractor is forming the west side of the bridge deck, pouring concrete on the east bridge deck, placing the articulated concrete block on the river bottom. Other work includes relocating Southern California Edison (SCE) vaults, constructing new curb, gutter and new Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) curb ramps.
New Cathedral Canyon Bridge
Another long-awaited bridge is ready to be built. The Cathedral Canyon Bridge will provide a safe all-weather 24-hour crossing over the Whitewater River.
Design is complete and we are awaiting approval to proceed with the construction of a new 600-feet-long, 89-feet wide bridge that will provide four lanes of travel, two in each direction, divided by a 10-foot wide raised center median. The bridge will also provide 8-foot shoulders on each side, each striped with a 5-foot on-pavement bike lane and bordered by a concrete curb, a 6-foot sidewalk and a concrete barrier with decorative railing.
For all the motorist that use Cathedral Canyon regularly, the City has also included in the $25 million Project, a temporary 1,056 feet bypass roadway next to and west of the bridge construction work between Paseo Azulejo and Canyon Shores Drive. This two-lane roadway will allow motorist, cyclist and pedestrians to continue to use Cathedral Canyon during construction, as long as the Whitewater River remains dry. In wet times, this bypass will, of course be closed for safety.
All planning, design, right of way, and permits have been completed for this Project. This Project is “shovel ready” and all paperwork has been submitted to Cal Trans/FHWA for their portion of the Project funding Once approved, the City Engineering Staff will solicit bids for the construction of the Project which is expected to commence in June of 2019 and will be completed within 18 months.
Dinah Shore Drive/Date Palm Drive Intersection Reconstruction and Dinah Shore Drive Pavement Rehabilitation
Although not a bridge project, the Dinah Shore Drive/Date Palm Drive Intersection Reconstruction Project and the Dinah Shore Drive Pavement Rehabilitation represent a significant investment the City is making in reconstructing our roadways. These are two separate projects that the City Engineering Staff combined to get the work completed at the same time and also get an “economy of scale” cost savings on the materials.
The Dinah Shore Drive/Date Palm Drive Intersection Project portion is the first City Project to be funded by the Senate Bill 1 legislative funding otherwise known as “SB-1” or more commonly known as “the Gas Tax”. Annually, the City will receive approximate $900,000 of funds to be used specifically for road work, as a result of “the Gas Tax.”
The other Project that constitutes the other half of the Project is the Dinah Shore Drive Pavement Rehabilitation. This Project calls for the total rehabilitation of roadway from the Dinah Shore Bridge to the above cited Dinah Shore Drive/Date Palm Drive Intersection. This $1.2 million plus Project will include the cold milling and removing of all the existing AC pavement, pulverizing the existing base and sub-base down to 7-inches, cement treat, cure and shape, pave with 5-inch asphalt concrete, replace curb ramps, cross gutters and curb and gutter. Altogether, the City will be replacing almost 300,000 square feet of roadway with 8,000 tons of asphalt concrete.
Funding this portion of the Project will be from prior gas tax measures, Measure A funds, and contributions from matured funds from City Assessment District 86-1.
Construction for all the Dinah Shore work will commence on July 9, 2018 and will be completed within 45 working days. During this construction period an eastbound and westbound lane of traffic will be open for the driving public as well as pedestrian crossings.
Patience
No matter the time of year and/or time of day, bridge and roadway projects always cause inconveniences to motorists. This City strives to minimize the inconvenience. We continue to ask for your patience while these Projects are under construction. Safety is number one, and if we slow you down, it is for a good reason. We want to keep construction workers safe and you safe while you are on your journey.
As always, the Engineering Department Staff is always available to discuss big and small Projects, so please contact us anytime at (760) 770-0340.
