|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Construction workers are seen carrying and installing steel beams along the sound wall on Valley Avenue between Hopyard Road and Santa Rita Road. (Photo by Chuck Deckert) 
The permanent steel beams will help the sound wall reach its maximum life expectancy, according to the city. (Photo by Chuck Deckert) 
Construction workers are seen working on the sound wall as part of the city’s Valley Avenue Soundwall Repair Project. (Photo by Chuck Deckert) 
A photo shows the steel beams that are being installed by the city in order to strengthen the sound wall along Valley Avenue. (Photo by Chuck Deckert)
If you’ve recently driven down Valley Avenue in Pleasanton, you might have noticed some peculiar steel braces that seem to be supporting the sound wall along the road.
Well, as it turns out, this work is part of the city of Pleasanton’s ongoing “Valley Avenue Soundwall Repair Project”, a capital improvement project that the city is working on to repair a portion of the sound wall.
According to city communications manager Heather Tiernan, the permanent steel braces will help “strengthen the wall to ensure it reaches its full life expectancy, estimated at 60 to 75 years from its original installation in the 1980s”.
“It will eventually need to be replaced, but that isn’t anticipated for another 30+ years,” Tiernan told the Weekly.
According to an Oct. 21 staff report to the City Council, the precast sound wall along Valley Avenue, which does what the name suggests and acts as a barrier for noise, between Hopyard and Santa Rita roads was originally installed in the late ’80s.
However, in 2017, a 230-foot section of the wall “failed, exposing the adjacent residents’ backyards”. At first the city removed the collapsed portion of the wall and installed a temporary wooden fence until it could find the funding for a permanent fence.
But shortly after that, other sections of the sound wall began failing following some storms, which required the removal and installation of interim wood fencing, according to the October staff report.
After all that, one of the city’s engineering consultants, Biggs Cardosa Associates, was tasked with design services and developing plans to address the sound wall repairs. During its work, the consultant firm determined that the failure of the wall segments was “associated with the deterioration of the metal support columns, which lacked protective coatings”.Â
“The existing precast wall panels were in good shape, did not need to be replaced and could reach their expected 60-year service life,” according to the staff report.
Since then the city has been working on the design and construction of the sound wall repair project, which aims to address these issues by stabilizing and reinforcing 533 precast sound wall panels along both eastbound and westbound Valley Avenue.
“This project will stabilize 6,750 linear feet of existing precast soundwall by installing 1,070 new, galvanized tube steel posts in cast-in-drilled hole piles,” according to staff. “Work includes temporary support of existing panels, clearing and grubbing at post locations, connection of new posts to existing concrete panels, installation of redwood cladding, sidewalk removal and replacement at post locations, and irrigation and planting restoration.”
Tiernan said the steel braces that are currently visible will be covered with wood to “better match other posts on the wall”.
According to the October staff report, the city received bids from construction contractors on Sept.4, 2025 and the City Council, during its consent calendar portion of the meeting, awarded B and D Excavation and Construction with a $2,665,540 contract to carry out the work, which started at the end of last year.
