Roseville discusses expanding Blue Oaks Boulevard bridge to ease congestion
ROSEVILLE — Roseville city leaders on Wednesday are expected to take a big step toward building a new bridge.
The location is along Blue Oaks Boulevard between Highway 65 and Foothills Boulevard.
"There's a lot of traffic on Blue Oaks Boulevard," said Jason Shykowski, the city's public works director.
It's one of the biggest bottlenecks in town, and Shykowski said the city has known Blue Oaks Boulevard has needed improvements for some time now.
He said new construction and growth in west Roseville is adding to the rush-hour congestion.
"If nothing was done, traffic would get worse and people would be unhappy with their commutes," Skykowksi said.
Currently, there are six lanes of east-west traffic on Blue Oaks, and that's going to be expanded to eight lanes. However, all of those cars are funneled down to just four lanes over a bridge that crosses above the railroad tracks just west of Highway 65.
People who regularly drive along the boulevard say traffic jams can be blocks long and dangerous.
"People are entering from the freeway as well as coming down the road, so you have people coming 60-70 miles an hour down the ramp and people going 40-45 and no one pays enough attention," said driver Jacob Honick.
Now there are plans to double the size of the bridge. A new span would be built alongside the current one for a total of eight lanes all the way to Highway 65.
"I think that would be a wonderful idea," Honick said.
But building a new bridge takes time. Shykowski said the city expects the design portion of the project to take another two to three years. It will take another two years after that to complete construction.
The goal is to have the new lanes open before traffic backups become even longer.
"We want to be able to provide a transportation system that gets people where they want to go without a lot of hassle," Shykowski said.
The total construction cost is expected to be about $30 million with most of the money coming from fees that developers pay for traffic mitigation.
