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Work will begin late Monday night, July 21, on major modifications to on and off ramps at the the Bernal Avenue interchange with I-680 to relieve rush hour backups.
Traffic engineer Ed Evangelista said the ramps will occasionally closed to traffic between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. for nighttime construction work. Ramp closure dates and times will be posted in advance at the ramp entrances.
The approximate completion date for the project is February 2015.
Evangelista said the project will improve interchange operation and safety. At the I-680 northbound on-ramp intersection, one westbound through lane will be converted to a shared through/right turn lane to the northbound on-ramp to reduce vehicle queue and congestion.
At the I-680 southbound on-ramp, one westbound Bernal Avenue through lane will be converted to a second westbound left turn lane to reduce vehicle queue and congestion.
Also, the free running right turn lane from the I-680 southbound off-ramp to eastbound Bernal Avenue will be converted to a yield control to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety. A sidewalk will also be constructed along the south side of Bernal Avenue between W. Lagoon Road and the northbound I-680 intersection.
If ever a freeway interchange deserved a 4-way cloverleaf, this is it. The traffic congestion caused by both the north and south-bound on-ramps has been horrendous for years (even before the Safeway shopping center went in). When I lived in the Country Fair neighborhood, I went to great lengths to avoid this area during commute times.
This interchange certainly needs improvement, but this work sounds like another of the misguided alterations where the City converts a through lane of traffic to a turn lane (usually with inadequate warning signage and the very-disruptive lane changes that result). This interchange needs ADDITIONAL lanes added so that there are two dedicated turn lanes at each on and off ramps, especially with the high-density housing that is being forced down our throats.
It sounds like the work has already started!
The construction sounds fill the night time air 10:00pm to 5:00am.
They should construct a direct fly over ramp, into and out of the fair grounds.
just a little tweaking of the signal light management would improvement this dramatically.
Now that you mention it- a little tweaking of all Pleasanton signals would be nice. How ridiculous is West Las Positas and Muirwood Dr signal. It changes green when no on is even there. You go over to Dublin and their traffic flow is great as their signals are not all on timers, they work with flow of traffic.
If the West Las Positas ramps had been built, as originally laid out in the master plans, Bernal Ave. wouldn’t be as impacted!!!
This is so overdue. I feel it is dangerous trying to merge onto the freeway coming on from Bernal. Drivers in the right hand lane do not move over. Also during the fair the traffic was backed up past Stoneridge to exit at Bernal. This is unacceptable. Traffic lights on Bernal should have been adjusted to accommodate this and/or officers should have been directing traffic during peak times – like on weekends and the 4th evening. I had to go down to Sunol to exit a few times just to avoid this jam up.
Also I agree that the lights should be tweeked to go with the flow of traffic. Seems like I am waiting at a lot of lights when there is no traffic coming in any direction. Also the lights at Bernal and Valley should be adjusted accordingly. Too long of wait time.
The Pleasanton police used to do a much better job of managing the traffic flow, during the Fair, at Bernal and Valley. Then there was some sort of turf war, or cost-related issue, and the Alameda County Sheriff took over that responsibility. The Sheriff’s office has done a horrible job at managing the traffic, they were practically non-existent. This year, they had a much better presence (i.e. more officers visible), but were still doing a horrible job. There seemed to be mostly riding around on their dirt bikes acting “impotent” — all show and no action.
Dear R:
You can report a traffic signal that is not operating correctly using the Pleasanton website “Contact Us” link. Last week I reported that the left turn signal at Foothill and Stoneridge would always go green even when no car was there. It was fixed the next day! I got an email from the engineer thanking me for the input and explaining what the problem was.
Turn off the damn metering light….problem solved, at least for the i680 southbound on-ramp. Anybody have a pair of $2 wire cutters?
Need a new 680-South off-ramp instead. Oh well – too much mula. We’ll see how well this works.
Minor changes to the interchange will so nothing to alleviate the larger problem. Neither will the outlandish hundreds of million dollar suggestions that the above commentors posted such as flyover interchanges. Sure, you could spend millions or even billions of dollars to build this monstrosity, but for what? So you can have a nice view while you are merging in to the congested 680? The only real solution to these congestions problems would be increased transportation funding in Pleasanton and on 680. Express busses with dedicated lanes could run up and down 680 whisking people past traffic. Unfortunately Pleasanton seems to have a phobia of busses or anything other than their own vehicles. The fact that so many drove to the fair and spent a lot of money on parking and a lot of hassle sitting in traffic instead of a pleasant bike ride baffles me. The suggestion of a higher speed ACE train that would whisk people to their silicon valley jobs much faster than even a non congested 680 was rejected so quickly. Why is it that the only solution people think of is too build more interchanges or more freeway?
Wait, they are basically re-striping a few lanes and this is going to take 7 months? WOW. Traffic engineers are probably the most clueless people on the planet. Just look at the mess they created with the 580 Eastbound exit to Foothill Blvd. Seriously WOW!
The current Pleasanton Traffic Engineer is especially incompetent. His signature accomplishments are incredibly poor timing of lights, through lanes that all of a sudden become turn lanes (with little warning), traffic circles/rotors, speed bumps for Black Avenue, endlessly repaving Santa Rita and Stoneridge while other streets desperately need repaving, and letting CalTrans hose traffic flow in Pleasanton. I think this dude was put in office by dingy Mayor Hosterman – another of her stellar accomplishments.
@Anthony…a few years ago the business parks consisting of what is now Tesla, Lam Research, and Fremont Bayside Technology Park, came together as a group to ask employees about an ACE Train to AC Transit bus service that would provide express bus service to and from the Fremont ACE station. The employees overwhelmingly supported this idea. But the Alameda County Transportion commission, of whom our former mayor was a commissioner, shot it down. So don’t give us the BS that people need to get out of their cars and take public transportation. That can only happen if our elected officals actually do something that has the support of the commuters rather than spend money on stupid projects like this Bernal interchange fiasco which is nothing more than making a parking lot into a bigger parking lot.
@Bill… I agree completely, investment in transportation is critical to improving ridership. Whe projects like the AC transit express bus or the higher speed ACE train are struck down we set our commuters up for no options but driving (if you could call it that) down 680 to their silicon valley jobs. The problem is that when money is spent on highway projects instead of transit because of the justification that more people are driving this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
“If the West Las Positas ramps had been built, as originally laid out in the master plans, Bernal Ave. wouldn’t be as impacted!!!”
Frustrated — You are right on!!!
Matt Sullivan, our local union shill and misguided former Council member, helped a handful of residents near the planned interchange in getting it removed from the General Plan. This was a huge mistake and we’re paying the price now.
Now that some of the construction is forming, it looks like a mess! What a waste of time and money – people trying to just get home from Bernal to anywhere on Foothill are paying the price and with all the ‘through’ lanes being converted to shared turn lanes, we will never get home. I wish they would hire people who actually live here to design the work!
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