Caltrans to widen I-5 from Anderson to Redding

[bing101]

https://www.redding.com/story/news/2018/05/17/caltrans-gets-65-7-million-widen-5-redding-anderson/619925002/

Well the current proposed costs to renovate I-5 in the Redding area is at $65.7 million.

[kkt]

Yay!

[nexus73]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

[kkt]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

Yes.  But, baby steps.

[sparker]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

Yes.  But, baby steps.

It certainly wouldn't be an easy prospect to widen I-5 out to 6 lanes in certain areas defined by topographic difficulty, such as the Sacramento River canyon between Vollmers and Dunsmuir and the Anderson Grade segment between Yreka and the Klamath River crossing; both would require extensive carving out of, respectively, the canyon walls and the side of a mountain.  That would not only be an exceptionally costly prospect but also likely to draw the ire of environmental groups, further delaying the process.  Some bridges -- particularly the Pit River bridge over the east Shasta Lake arm, would also be difficult to expand; since that bridge also features a lower deck carrying the UP (former SP) main line from CA to Portland -- and its widening to accommodate I-5 entailed cantilevering the current carriageway out from the supporting structure -- a capacity enhancement would likely mean a parallel or new-location bridge for one direction of travel while reconfiguring the current bridge for single-directional 3-lane use.  In the long term, that certainly wouldn't be a bad idea; the current bridge is quite cramped, lacking any shoulders whatsoever.  Nevertheless, a new bridge, including whatever approaches were necessary, definitely wouldn't come cheap! 

[nexus73]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

Yes.  But, baby steps.

It certainly wouldn't be an easy prospect to widen I-5 out to 6 lanes in certain areas defined by topographic difficulty, such as the Sacramento River canyon between Vollmers and Dunsmuir and the Anderson Grade segment between Yreka and the Klamath River crossing; both would require extensive carving out of, respectively, the canyon walls and the side of a mountain.  That would not only be an exceptionally costly prospect but also likely to draw the ire of environmental groups, further delaying the process.  Some bridges -- particularly the Pit River bridge over the east Shasta Lake arm, would also be difficult to expand; since that bridge also features a lower deck carrying the UP (former SP) main line from CA to Portland -- and its widening to accommodate I-5 entailed cantilevering the current carriageway out from the supporting structure -- a capacity enhancement would likely mean a parallel or new-location bridge for one direction of travel while reconfiguring the current bridge for single-directional 3-lane use.  In the long term, that certainly wouldn't be a bad idea; the current bridge is quite cramped, lacking any shoulders whatsoever.  Nevertheless, a new bridge, including whatever approaches were necessary, definitely wouldn't come cheap! 

Nothing is cheap about rebuilding so many miles of I-5 but either we git 'er done or see the arteries of transportation get further clogged.  As much as we spent on the Iraq war with its associated legacy costs ($14 trillion is the estimate), we could have rebuilt the entire USA infrastructure several times over.  The money was there but the political will?  It's MIA.  In the meantime China now has more miles of their freeways which they call expressways than we do in the entire Interstate system.

Baby steps won't do when the demand for lane-miles is increasing faster than the supply.  All we are doing is prolonging the inevitable collapse of surface transportation with our current policies, administration and funding levels. 

Rick

[kkt]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

Yes.  But, baby steps.

It certainly wouldn't be an easy prospect to widen I-5 out to 6 lanes in certain areas defined by topographic difficulty, such as the Sacramento River canyon between Vollmers and Dunsmuir and the Anderson Grade segment between Yreka and the Klamath River crossing; both would require extensive carving out of, respectively, the canyon walls and the side of a mountain.  That would not only be an exceptionally costly prospect but also likely to draw the ire of environmental groups, further delaying the process.  Some bridges -- particularly the Pit River bridge over the east Shasta Lake arm, would also be difficult to expand; since that bridge also features a lower deck carrying the UP (former SP) main line from CA to Portland -- and its widening to accommodate I-5 entailed cantilevering the current carriageway out from the supporting structure -- a capacity enhancement would likely mean a parallel or new-location bridge for one direction of travel while reconfiguring the current bridge for single-directional 3-lane use.  In the long term, that certainly wouldn't be a bad idea; the current bridge is quite cramped, lacking any shoulders whatsoever.  Nevertheless, a new bridge, including whatever approaches were necessary, definitely wouldn't come cheap! 

Yes.   A new right-of-way through the mountains may turn out to be easier than retrofitting an additional lane each way onto the existing one.  However, the mountainous section from Shasta Lake to Roseburg perhaps could be done later, and start with Sacramento to Redding and the Grapevine to the I-5/I-580 split.

[sparker]

I-5 should be 6-lane minimum for the entire length.  The rural areas of NorCal and southern Oregon need the extra lanes to handle the slow moving trucks while the flatlands sections of WA, OR and CA are traffic jammed from Canada to Mexico.

Rick

Yes.  But, baby steps.

It certainly wouldn't be an easy prospect to widen I-5 out to 6 lanes in certain areas defined by topographic difficulty, such as the Sacramento River canyon between Vollmers and Dunsmuir and the Anderson Grade segment between Yreka and the Klamath River crossing; both would require extensive carving out of, respectively, the canyon walls and the side of a mountain.  That would not only be an exceptionally costly prospect but also likely to draw the ire of environmental groups, further delaying the process.  Some bridges -- particularly the Pit River bridge over the east Shasta Lake arm, would also be difficult to expand; since that bridge also features a lower deck carrying the UP (former SP) main line from CA to Portland -- and its widening to accommodate I-5 entailed cantilevering the current carriageway out from the supporting structure -- a capacity enhancement would likely mean a parallel or new-location bridge for one direction of travel while reconfiguring the current bridge for single-directional 3-lane use.  In the long term, that certainly wouldn't be a bad idea; the current bridge is quite cramped, lacking any shoulders whatsoever.  Nevertheless, a new bridge, including whatever approaches were necessary, definitely wouldn't come cheap! 

Yes.   A new right-of-way through the mountains may turn out to be easier than retrofitting an additional lane each way onto the existing one.  However, the mountainous section from Shasta Lake to Roseburg perhaps could be done later, and start with Sacramento to Redding and the Grapevine to the I-5/I-580 split.

Not a bad idea -- but the remaining 4-lane sections between the I-580 split near Patterson and Sacramento should also be included in such a project, since I-5 in that area is now handling considerable commuter traffic to and from the Bay Area in addition to its historic N-S arterial role; expanding it to 6 lanes, particularly between CA 12 and Elk Grove, would definitely be welcome (although itself not cheap because of the "spongy" ground that caused that section to be the last Valley segment completed back in 1981).