Caltrans will close lanes on a second local freeway for emergency repairs

Sacramento drivers dealing with repeated night-time lane closures on Interstate 5 in recent weeks now have a new freeway to worry about.

Caltrans officials say inspectors are checking out Highway 50 in the East Sacramento and Sacramento State areas for the same kind of cracking that led to major concrete failures in August on Interstate 5 at Richards Boulevard.

Those August incidents created overnight potholes that damaged several dozen cars and trucks.

Work on I-5 is now about 60 percent finished, Caltrans spokesman Dennis Keaton said. He said drivers should expect periodic nighttime lane closures on that freeway for at least another few weeks, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays, and 9 p.m to 8 a.m. on weekends.

That work will require closures of some connector ramps between I-5 and Highway 50 in downtown over the next 10 days, as well as closures some nights on ramps at Florin Road, 43rd Avenue, Fruitridge Road, Sutterville Road and Q Street.

Updates are available at the local Caltrans district website, www.dot.ca.gov/d3/

Caltrans also will post changeable message boards on the freeway alerting drivers to each night’s closure areas. People traveling through at night also can check real-time maps, including quickmap.dot.ca.gov, before their trip for up-to-the-minute traffic reports.

The emergency repairs initially were expected to be limited to I-5. But Caltrans officials said they decided to inspect sections of Highway 50 as well after some similar cracking was noted.

Caltrans officials say the cracking concrete is caused by pounded, often from trucks in the slow lanes, over decades of use.

“The (emergency project) wasn’t really intended to be this big,” Keaton said, “but (we) said, let’s get this fixed. We didn’t want to take a chance on that happening again. We are going to have a wet winter.”

Keaton said inspectors do not believe Highway 50 has as many trouble spots as I-5 did, but “they are seeing some slabs that could potentially become an issue like Richards.”

Keaton said work on the two freeways should be finished in mid-November, weather permitting.