New Segment of I-580 Carpool Lane Opens Today
Driving east on Interstate 580 toward Costco and LVCP, Dublin’s second public high school option, will get easier starting today, as Caltrans and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency open an additional 2.9 miles of the new HOV lane from Airway Boulevard to past Portola Road in Livermore, CA.
Caltrans and the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency also announced that the full 12-mile HOV lane, from Hacienda Road in Pleasanton to Greenville Road in Livermore, is now expected to open a full year ahead of schedule in Fall 2010. The 12-mile HOV lane will be converted to an Express Lane next year, giving solo drivers the choice of using the lane by paying a toll electronically via a FasTrak toll tag, while carpools and other HOV vehicles will continue to use the lane for free.
“This lane will help relieve congestion on one of the Bay Area’s busiest stretches of freeway: I-580 from Pleasanton eastward,” said Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, Chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “I am pleased that construction is ahead of schedule so we can bring drivers a better trip sooner.”
The first segment of the I-580 eastbound HOV lane, 4.5 miles from east of Portola Road to Greenville Road, opened in October 2009. “Traffic on the eastern portion of the I-580 corridor definitely got better once the new carpool lane opened,” said Mark Green, Chair of the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency. “Reducing congestion on an additional 2.9 miles will improve air quality and driving time for thousands of people every day.”
The I-580 eastbound HOV lane was one of the first projects in Northern California to use funds from Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion bond measure approved by California voters in November 2006. Eastbound I-580 accounts for the second-most “vehicle hours of delay” in the Bay Area, and the worst on a per-mile basis, according to the congestion statistics from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Average traffic on this stretch of I-580 is approximately 200,000 vehicles per day.
Construction of the HOV lane is not only ahead of schedule but also under budget by about $28 million. The cost of the project was originally estimated to be $153 million. According to Bijan Sartipi, Caltrans District 4 Director, the New Segment of I-580 Carpool Lane, along with the repaving of all the lanes on the roadway and the opening of new auxiliary lanes from Isabel Avenue to First Street, should be completed for $125 million. “The contractors, the engineers, and the public agencies have worked together to accelerate the delivery of this project,” said Sartipi.
The I-580 westbound HOV lane is expected to begin construction next year and be completed in 2012. Congestion relief projects along the I-580 corridor began in late 2006 with the installation of intelligent transportation systems and traffic monitoring devices along I-580, I-680, and SR-84, as well as local arterials within the Tri-Valley.
Motorists can keep up-to-date on the I-580 Corridor improvements online at www.i580.info. The website has live camera views of traffic conditions as well as details on all aspects of the improvement projects.
The new I-580 Express Lanes will be located on a 12-mile eastbound stretch of Interstate 580 from just west of the Hacienda Drive interchange in Pleasanton to just east of the Greenville Road undercrossing in Livermore.
