Overview
What's Happening at Washington Boulevard?
What's Happening at Paseo Padre Parkway?
Union Pacific Switchover in September 2008
Pictorial Highlights of Key Construction Activities

Overview

Motorists are noticing many changes these days as they navigate the temporary detour roads for Paseo Padre Parkway and Washington Boulevard. With the shift of traffic onto the temporary detour roads and out of the way of construction crews in autumn 2007, the new overpass and underpass have seemed to materialize almost overnight.

The City is constructing the grade separations along Paseo Padre Parkway and Washington Boulevard and building the new railroad corridor east of the existing railroad corridor. The grade separation work is occurring in several phases to allow continued vehicular and pedestrian traffic and operation of the active Union Pacific Railroad line. Once the new railroad track is in place, the railroad traffic will switch to the new corridor. Following this, the grade separation work will occur in the areas formerly occupied by the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

What’s Happening at Washington Boulevard?

The Washington Boulevard overpass involves the construction of an elevated roadway consisting of a 250-foot-long bridge over the new Union Pacific railroad track and the future BART extension to Warm Springs in addition to elevated roadways leading up to the bridge. In order for the Washington Boulevard/Driscoll Road/Osgood Road intersection to be functional, both Osgood and Driscoll roads also had to be raised to match the new elevated Washington Boulevard. New embankments are being built for the Driscoll and Osgood roadways leading up to the new elevated intersection. The westerly side of these two roadways will be supported by mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining walls to reduce impacts on surrounding properties.

Constructing bridge columns and abutment walls for the Washington Boulevard Overpass

What’s Happening at Paseo Padre Parkway?

At Paseo Padre Parkway, the City is constructing an approximately 1,100-foot-long depressed roadway, which will have two lanes of traffic in each direction, an 18-foot-wide median, and bicycle lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the parkway. Because of the high water table in the area, constructing a depressed roadway required a unique engineering solution. To keep the new underpass dry and minimize water infiltration, construction crews built soil/cement barrier walls on both sides of the new roadway, and constructed a pump station under the roadway to remove collected rainwater or residual seepage from the barrier walls. Water pumped out of the underpass will be discharged into the local drainage system.

In addition to the underpass, three bridges have been constructed over the Paseo Padre Parkway underpass including a bridge for the realigned Union Pacific Railroad, a bridge for the future BART extension to Warm Springs, and a pedestrian/utility bridge, which houses the fiber optic lines formerly located in the railroad corridor. The new utility bridge will also act as a critical link for a future pedestrian and bicycle trail between Central Park and the Irvington District.

Installing the pedestrian/utility bridge over the new Paseo Padre Parkway

Union Pacific Switchover in September 2008

Union Pacific, in coordination with the project team, moved its rail operations to the new railroad corridor on September 22, 2008.

The railroad switchover marks a major milestone in the Grade Separation Project. In preparation, the project team and Union Pacific were involved in complex coordination to ensure the switchover caused minimal disruption to motorists and the surrounding community. The new corridor includes approximately one and a half miles of new tracks located several hundred feet east of the existing tracks in the area between Paseo Padre Parkway and Washington Boulevard. The new tracks tie into the existing tracks near Lake Elizabeth to the north and near the equivalent of Haven Street to the south.

New Railroad Crossing Locations

The railroad switchover changed the location of the railroad crossings at both the Paseo Padre Parkway and Washington Boulevard detour roads to approximately 200 feet east of the existing crossings. Once the new crossings have been in place and operating satisfactorily for at least 30 days, the old crossings will be removed.

The new railroad crossings for the detour roads will be in place until the new Washington Boulevard Overpass and Paseo Padre Parkway Underpass are completed. Once traffic is moved onto the new grade-separated roadways in early and mid-2009 at Washington Boulevard and Paseo Padre Parkway respectively, the railroad crossings will no longer be needed and will be removed.

Throughout this phase of the project, drivers should remain vigilant of traffic flow along Paseo Padre Parkway and Washington Boulevard, near the railroad crossings, and around construction crews.

Crews install new Union Pacific Railroad track

View of UP train crossing new utility bridge over Paseo Padre Parkway

Pictorial Highlights of Key Construction Activities

Click here to view pictorial highlights of key construction activities from Spring 2007 through Summer 2008.