Federal, state, local and railroad officials gathered before an audience of more than 150 people on Nov. 1 to kick off construction of a concrete-walled railroad trench reaching 30 feet deep, 65 feet wide and 1.4 miles long through the City of San Gabriel. The grade separation project will separate trains from vehicles, eliminating vehicle delays and deadly collisions at four crossings and reducing emissions from idling cars and trucks forced to wait for passing freight trains.
Street bridges spanning the San Gabriel Trench will be constructed at Ramona Street, Mission Road, Del Mar Avenue and San Gabriel Boulevard, which are used daily by nearly 90,000 motorists. Once completed in 2017, cars, trucks and emergency vehicles will no longer need to wait for an average of 18 trains per day, projected to increase to 61 trains per day by 2025 if a second track is installed as planned by Union Pacific Railroad.
“This is a proud and great day for the City of San Gabriel and the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority,” said City of San Gabriel Councilman David R. Gutierrez, Chairman of the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority (ACE). “The San Gabriel Trench project will eliminate traffic delays due to passing trains, deadly crossing collisions, locomotive horn blasts, help improve our region’s air quality and create 8,900 jobs over five years of construction.”
The $336.5 million grade separation project will eliminate collisions at the crossings where two fatal and two injury collisions resulted over the last 10 years. Train horns and crossing alarms will be silenced with the removal of the at-grade crossings and the trench walls will shield nearby homes, churches, schools and businesses from train noise. The project is an investment in the Alameda Corridor-East Trade Corridor, which accommodates about 60% of the port containers moved from the nation’s busiest container ports in the San Pedro Bay to the rest of the country via the region’s rail network.
“In addition to reducing congestion and improving air quality, this vital project is an important link in our regional strategy of moving cargo containers by train rather than in diesel trucks on our freeways,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor, ACE Board Member and current MTA Board Chairman Michael D. Antonovich.
Among the guests attending the event were Congress-members Judy Chu and Ed Royce, State Senators Carol Liu and Ed Hernandez, Assembly-members Bonnie Lowenthal, Mike Eng, Anthony Portantino, and Norma Torres, California Transportation Commissioners Fran Inman and Yvonne Burke, LA County Supervisor and MTA Chairman Michael Antonovich, FHWA Associate Division Administrator Rick Backlund, Caltrans Acting District Director Terry Abbott, MTA Director John Fasana and other elected officials and community leaders.
“The ACE Construction Authority is delivering on roadway-railway projects that will benefit our community by reducing vehicle congestion, improving air quality and improving shipping routes that benefit the entire nation,” said Congresswoman Judy Chu. “The San Gabriel Trench Project is one of the most complicated projects ACE is undertaking, but its efforts to protect the San Gabriel Mission while improving transportation infrastructure are critical to the preservation and rediscovery to the unique history of our region. I am proud to work in Congress to secure federal funding for freight projects like ACE that create vital infrastructure for a thriving future.”
“These much-needed grade separations are an important step in improving regional mobility and continued economic vitality in the face of growing freight traffic in Southern California,” said State Senator Ed Hernandez, Chair of the San Gabriel Valley State Legislative Caucus. “ACE has the strong bipartisan support and confidence of the entire San Gabriel Valley delegation in Sacramento.”
“Goods movement in Southern California is significant to our regional as well as our national economy,” said California Transportation Commissioner Fran Inman. “We must continue to ensure that the state transportation bond funds programmed by the California Transportation Commission support goods movement while mitigating the impacts on local communities.”
“Voters can be assured that the state transportation bonds they approved six years ago will continue to pay important dividends for our region through the ACE grade separation projects in terms of jobs created and improvements to mobility, air quality and public health in the San Gabriel Valley,” said Assemblyman Mike Eng, a member of the Assembly Transportation Committee.
“Los Angeles County’s sales tax for transportation was essential to funding the completion of the design plans for the San Gabriel Trench project, and the ACE Construction Authority can be provided the resources needed to complete other grade separation projects if voters approve Measure J on the November 6th ballot,” said Duarte Mayor John Fasana, the San Gabriel Valley’s representative to the LA County Metro Board of Directors.
For more information, visit www.theaceproject.org.
