American River Bridges in Sacramento

[mrsman]

Quoted from the Northeast forum:

My workplace is 8.1 miles from where I live. On a Sunday, I can get there in 15 minutes. In the morning at 6:30 AM, it can take 25 minutes. In the afternoon, it can take up to 45 minutes thanks to a notorious bridge that crosses the American River called the Sunrise Blvd Bridge. There are a total of seven bridges that cross the American River between Sacramento and Folsom: Howe Ave, Watt Ave, Sunrise Blvd., Hazel Ave, Folsom Blvd, Greenback Lane, and Folsom Lake Crossing. Of those:

• Folsom Lake Crossing was constructed as a direct replacement to the Folsom Dam road which was closed off after 9/11.
• Folsom Blvd was constructed because Greenback Lane was extremely old and causing major backups.
• Sunrise was expanded from 2 lanes in each direction to three in the 90s.

That's it! Despite the increase in traffic in over 35 years, that's all the construction thanks to the NIMBYs who want to preserve the American River Parkway.

Zloth,

The Watt Avenue bridge was also widened from 2 lanes in each direction to 3 lanes in each direction in the early 2000's.

[TheStranger]

At least two proposed new state highway crossings of the American River (so not including the unbuilt replacement for what is now the Business 80 bridge, which would have been part of the pre-1979 I-80 realignment project) were nixed during the 1970s:

- the Route 143 crossing somewhere east of Watt and west of Bradshaw, which would have connected Rosemont and Arden.  Route 143 is basically an unbuilt proposed parallel corridor to Watt between Route 99 in Elk Grove and the 80/Business 80 split

- the Route 244 crossing west of Folsom and east of Rancho Cordova, which would have been part of a freeway connecting Gold River with the 80/Business 80 split, allowing drivers heading from points west (San Francisco, Bay Area et al.) to bypass downtown Sacramento on their way to US 50 East

- Route 65, which is still in the books in long-term planning.  The crossing would likely be in eastern Rancho Cordova/Gold River.

[TheStranger]

Since this is the only thread that I see the Watt Avenue bridge mentioned in...

The former cloverleaf at US 50 on its south end has been converted to a 6-ramp parclo (which opened about 4-5 days ago) with stoplights.  Before that, the route was a de-facto freeway from Folsom Boulevard to Fair Oaks Boulevard.

[TheStranger]

The interchange project...has resulted in traffic issues along Watt, especially across the bridge:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/19/6014263/county-scrambles-to-unclog-major.html

[Indyroads]

The interchange project...has resulted in traffic issues along Watt, especially across the bridge:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/19/6014263/county-scrambles-to-unclog-major.html

They have effectively turned Watt Avenue into a traffic nightmare. Yet another reason that the SR-244 and SR-143 freeways should have been built to take some of the load off of Watt Ave.

[TheStranger]

The interchange project...has resulted in traffic issues along Watt, especially across the bridge:

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/19/6014263/county-scrambles-to-unclog-major.html

They have effectively turned Watt Avenue into a traffic nightmare. Yet another reason that the SR-244 and SR-143 freeways should have been built to take some of the load off of Watt Ave.

Even before the construction was completed, the ramps backed up quite often in the morning and afternoon rush hours - not enough lanes on either of them, which to some extent remains the issue.

Further work on the non-looping onramps will alleviate this to some degree, but that seems to be the continuing issue at that spot.

The parclo design also incorporates a yet-to-be-built pedestrian/bike bridge that will pass under the loop ramp from NB Watt to WB US 50.

[mrsman]

I used to live in the Sac area in the late 90's.  I had friends in the Watt/Arden area.  In those days, everyone avoided Watt and took either Howe or 160 to Arden to reach the neighborhood from Downtown.  In my most recent visit about 8 years ago, I was amazed by the improvements made to the Watt Ave bridge.

If I were still in the area, I'd take Howe to avoid this mess until the construction is done.

I like the Parclo treatment generally, and I believe that it'll significantly improve area traffic, despite the two additional signals.  Watt may get slightly worse, but US 50 will get much better with fewer ramps, and I believe that it's a fair trade-off.  We'll see if the traffic problems resolve once construction is done.

[Indyroads]

I used to live in the Sac area in the late 90's.  I had friends in the Watt/Arden area.  In those days, everyone avoided Watt and took either Howe or 160 to Arden to reach the neighborhood from Downtown.  In my most recent visit about 8 years ago, I was amazed by the improvements made to the Watt Ave bridge.

If I were still in the area, I'd take Howe to avoid this mess until the construction is done.

I like the Parclo treatment generally, and I believe that it'll significantly improve area traffic, despite the two additional signals.  Watt may get slightly worse, but US 50 will get much better with fewer ramps, and I believe that it's a fair trade-off.  We'll see if the traffic problems resolve once construction is done.

The ParClo 2 quadrant cloverleaf is pretty much used everywhere in the Sacramento area with the A4 layout (galleria/Stanford Ranch Rd and 65 uses the B4 layout instead.   The A4 layout reduces the number of signal phases needed to address traffic concerns. I wonder however if a more HYBRID type of parclo is needed for this intersection or maybe a sort of constant flow or diverging diamond intersection would be more suitable here.... Short of upgrading Watt Ave to a full freeway with a 4-Stack interchange there really aren't a whole lot of other options.

[ZLoth]

Zloth,

The Watt Avenue bridge was also widened from 2 lanes in each direction to 3 lanes in each direction in the early 2000's.

I rarely use the Watt Avenue bridge, so the widening project slipped my mind. The sad fact remains that we do not have enough bridge capacity in Sacramento.