SANTA MARIA – Be ready for slower traffic near the Santa Maria River Bridge.
Caltrans says it needs to close lanes on the bridge overnight for the rest of the week so crews can begin installing structural girders underneath the bridge.
Caltrans says the work will continue every night this week from 7pm to 6am and will be noisy at times.
When it comes to living in the path of progress, Al Sheff has a front row seat from his backyard in Santa Maria.
"I would think that Caltrans has my best interests in mind and I have a reasonable expectation that letters would show up in a timely fashion, we'd get some advance notice", Sheff says, "instead everything is like the day before or right that day if something is going to happen."
Sheff and his neighbors on Johnson Drive live closest to the Santa Maria River bridge widening project that began with heavy duty pile-driving of steel girders into the river bed.
"It was unbearable, you couldn't hear yourself think", Sheff says of the pile driving which he claims left cracks in the stucco of his home, "when we say that there is something wrong, a crack in our house or we try to talk to someone they say it didn't happen, or it happened before the pile driving began."
"When we begin projects like this that involve specifically pile-driving, we're pretty up front that this will be noisy but necessary work", says Caltrans spokesperson Jim Shivers.
Shivers says everyone who lives or works near the project site has been and continues to be notified in advance of all of bridge widening construction work.
"With the way of flyers, going door to door", Shivers says, "so that the local residents closest to the river bridges are aware at all times of what we are doing now but what will be coming in the future."
Caltrans says the bridge widening will benefit everyone who travels through the Santa Maria Valley.
"This will improve the transportation of not only people, but also goods and services throughout the Central Coast", Shivers says.
"Yes it matters", Sheff says, "but I'd also like to have some consideration in regards to what's going on, for them to keep us in the loop a little more, be part of the process."
Caltrans says the $31 million dollar bridge widening project is about 45 percent completed and is expected to be finished sometime in 2014 with three lanes in each direction along with a bicycle path.
