A $138 million project adding truck lanes to State Route 60 in the Badlands of Western Riverside County, California, aims to improve safety, reduce congestion and bring the road through mountainous terrain and steep grades up to current highway design standards.

“This is a safety project,” says Bryce Johnston, Project Manager for the Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC). “The corridor had a fairly significant accident rate, and we wanted to reduce that.”

Because of the steep grade, trucks drove slowly on the eastbound lanes, reducing traffic flow and creating back-ups in the constant flow of vehicles.

Chuck Washington, a Riverside County Supervisor, said in a statement that he expected the project once complete would save lives.

Riverside County Transportation Commission partnered with Caltrans on the 4.5-mile State Route 60 Truck Lanes Project, from Gilman Springs Road to 1.4 miles west of Jack Rabbit Trail. Funding includes federal, state, and local Measure A dollars. Measure A is a voter-approved sales tax for transportation projects in the county.

The road runs east to west and is heavily traveled by commuters and visitors to tourism destinations in the Coachella Valley and trucks carrying goods.

The scope includes constructing an eastbound truck climbing lane and a westbound truck descending lane, establishing 12-foot-wide exterior and 11-foot-wide interior shoulders, creating six wildlife crossings, extending 3 miles of drainage culverts and installing some new ones, placing wildlife fencing in other areas, flattening curves to improve drivers’ sight lines, and installing taller median barriers to prevent glare from oncoming traffic. The drainage systems required placing 15,000 linear feet of pipe.

Although the intention is for the trucks to use the new lanes, those lanes will not be restricted to truck traffic. The shoulders are being constructed to full structural strength and can be converted to travel lanes in the future.

Three of the new wildlife crossings, under the road, are 60-inch diameter reinforce concrete pipe, and three are 36-inch diameter reinforced concrete pipe. Additionally, three existing arch culverts are being extended, as are two 20-by-20 concrete boxes. Coyotes, foxes, deer, bobcats, skunks, raccoons, and mountain lions roam the area.

“Everybody asks about why we need such a large opening,” Johnston says. “It has to do with the light. The smaller drainage systems that function as a wildlife crossing are dark in the middle, and many animals will not use them.”

With the larger diameter openings, wildlife can see light at the other end and will use the crossings.

Caltrans designed the project and provides oversight. RCTC administers the construction phase. Falcon Engineering of Corona, California, serves as the construction manager.

Initially, Caltrans wanted work to take place on weekends only, but that would have extended the project for years and added millions to the cost. RCTC advertised the job early and received more than 10 competitive bids.

Skanska USA Civil West in Riverside received the $96 million, plus contingencies, construction contract.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission then informally technically partnered with the company to determine ways to build the project better, Johnston recalls.

That saved about $3.5 million, which was shared between the contractor and the transportation commission. The cost savings resulted from a new pavement structural section, the base and subbase of the concrete road; changes to drainage systems; and disposal of the road excavation on site, so it did not need to be hauled away. That included shifting dirt from the westbound to eastbound sides of the project, through a conveyor belt set up in one of the wildlife crossings, eliminating 14,000 truckloads of dirt to and from the project area daily.

“The informal partnering process really worked well on this project,” Johnston says.

Work began in June 2019. When the project began, Caltrans allowed Skanska to close one lane westbound for six months to get the westbound dirt moved at the bottom of the incline. Motorists were advised to take an alternative route. The commission offered Freeway Service Patrols to assist drivers with flat tires and mechanical problems.

“The most challenging on this project is the earth work,” says Rafael Gutierrez, Project Manager with Skanska USA in Riverside.

Crews are removing 2.1 million cubic yards of dirt while expanding a 55-foot-wide road to a 160-foot-wide road. The team moves about 15,000 cubic yards daily

The mountains had been cut back to build the existing road, leaving steep cut slopes, which now must be cut back again. Just getting the equipment up to the top of the steep cuts presented challenges, Gutierrez reports.

“The roadway excavation is mostly dirt and has no rock in it,” Gutierrez says. “The freeway remains open during construction.”

Crews have experienced slope instability with slides and sloughing, requiring the opening and revalidating the environmental impact study. Despite the instability, the workers have remained safe. “We’re still battling that slope instability,” Johnston reports.

Safety is Riverside County Transportation Commission’s top priority, and it has instituted strategies to reinforce ways to minimize workers’ exposure to COVID-19.

Crews are removing the existing asphalt pavement and placing new concrete pavement. Skanska plans to recycle the asphalt into a subbase. After the westbound lanes and shoulders are completed, traffic will move to them and work will commence on the eastbound lanes and interior shoulders. The project is scheduled for completion in 2022 and has no potential claims. Johnston and Gutierrez have worked together in the past.

“The partnership we have is just exceptional,” Johnston says. “We can talk things out.”

Gutierrez agrees, saying, “We’re proud of our relationship with RCTC. We are helping each other solve problems and get the job done safer and better.”