COUNTY

Construction to widen Yucca Loma Road expected to start this month

Matthew Cabe
mcabe@vvdailypress.com
With the Yucca Loma Bridge construction nearly complete, the second phase of the project — the widening of Yucca Loma Road — is expected to begin this month. Nearly a mile of the road, stretching from the bridge to Apple Valley Road, will be closed during the widening project, which will take Yucca Loma Road from two lanes to four lanes and also add a sidewalk, a traffic signal at Havasu and Yucca Loma roads, an emergency signal at the closed Yucca Loma Station 336, a Class I pedestrian-bicycle path and a storm drain system. Jose Huerta, Daily Press

APPLE VALLEY — The long-expected reconstruction of Yucca Loma Road is scheduled to begin this month and, among other improvements, will widen just under a mile of the road to four lanes over an 18-month period.

The project — phase two of the wider-reaching Yucca Loma Road/Yates Road/Green Tree Boulevard Transportation Improvement Project — was initially expected to start last summer with completion mirroring that of the Yucca Loma Bridge, but issues “outside the town’s control” stymied that part of the plan, according to Town Engineer Brad Miller.

Town officials recently told the Daily Press that the Yucca Loma Bridge is 97 percent complete and construction is expected to be finished by the third week of April.

“We had hoped that we’d be well into construction (on Yucca Loma Road) by now,” Miller said Thursday. “We have (had) other federal money on this job for quite some time, and we had approved plans and right of way, so we were on the June agenda for the California Transportation Commission for approval, which they did … We had always hoped that once the CTC approved the funding things would move forward quickly.”

Outside of the CTC, however, approvals from other governmental entities were required before the town could move forward with the project, according to Miller, and those approvals took longer than the town anticipated.

“We weren’t successful in getting the Department of Transportation to give us the notice to proceed until six months (after the CTC approval),” Miller explained. “(Authorization) has to go through several offices and layers of government, and … Caltrans didn’t give the OK until December.”

Without all the various approvals, the town wasn’t able to move forward without losing funding for the project, according to Miller.

Once approval came in December, however, the town invited construction bids for the estimated $13.7-million project and received six in total, according to town staff. Riverside Construction Co. Inc. was later awarded a construction contract during the Feb. 23 Town Council meeting for its bid of approximately $8.2 million.

The project will widen 4,052 feet of Yucca Loma Road between Kasanka Trail to the west and Apple Valley Road to the east, according to Town spokeswoman Charlene Engeron.

In addition, a new regional drainage facility, soundwalls at specific locations, a new traffic signal at the intersection of Havasu and Yucca Loma roads, a new emergency signal at the closed Yucca Loma Station 336, a Class I pedestrian-bicycle path and a sidewalk also will be constructed, according to documents related to the project.

The new drainage system will connect the existing storm drain in Yucca Loma Road to the new outfall into the Mojave River near Kasanka Trail, the documents show. Currently, the storm drain ends near Apple Valley Road.

And Apple Valley Fire Protection District Fire Chief Sid Hultquist told the Daily Press the new emergency signal could be crucial despite the fire station’s current closure.

“It's better to put (the signal) there now,” Hultquist said, “because if we were ever able to reopen the station in the future, that signal would be a crucial safety feature.”

The reconstruction of Yucca Loma Road is the last-remaining segment of the overall project within the town’s jurisdiction; the third segment of the project is the Green Tree Extension Project, which falls in Victorville’s jurisdiction.

The town has an obligation of approximately $4 million to Victorville for that project based on a memorandum of understanding between the two municipalities, the county and San Bernardino Associated Governments, according to a previous Daily Press report.

That estimated $41.79 million third phase is expected to extend Green Tree Boulevard from Hesperia Road to Ridgecrest and Yates roads about a mile to connect Green Tree Boulevard to Yucca Loma Road and provide a new pathway to Interstate 15 from Apple Valley.

Engeron previously told the Daily Press the $4 million obligation will be paid to Victorville as costs are incurred on that third phase of the project, which has not started due to funding concerns.

Town Manager Frank Robinson confirmed at the March 22 Town Council meeting that town officials will travel to Washington, D.C. this month to again lobby for U.S. Department of Transportation TIGER grant funding. Victorville previously applied for TIGER grants for the Green Tree extension, but was denied that funding last October.

Matthew Cabe can be reached at MCabe@VVDailyPress.com or at 760-951-6254. Follow him on Twitter @DP_MatthewCabe.