Breaking a Brutal Bottleneck: Rigorous Roseville Interchange Project Reaching End of the Road

A $35 million improvement to the Douglas/Sunrise interchange on Interstate 80 in the rapidly growing region northeast of Sacramento is expected to expedite the daily flow of 94,000 vehicles. In addition to a flyover bridge, the project includes an 800-ft. traffic tunnel.

By Robert Carlsen

The section of Interstate 80 that runs through the Roseville city limits is called the "Roseville Bottleneck," and nowhere is it more congested than at the intersection of Douglas Boulevard and Sunrise Avenue.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CALTRANS

But that's being fixed. The city of Roseville and Caltrans launched the Douglas/Interstate 80 interchange project in February 2004 with the intent to divert about 15,000 vehicles per day from the intersection to an 800-ft. tunnel and elevated bridge.

Completion is scheduled for late September.

More than 94,000 vehicles a day go through the Douglas/Sunrise intersection, clogging I-80 exits and entrances to the extreme.

"There's simply too much traffic cramming into too small of a space," said Rhon Herndon, Roseville's senior civil engineer.

Herndon said the city started working on the bottleneck in 1989, when it produced a capital improvement plan. Years of study and planning resulted in a phase one project in 1998 that widened by one lane each the left turn and through lanes.

"That helped for a while, but we knew we had to do something major eventually," Herndon said.

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The phase two, $35 million project adds a new flyover bridge to connect eastbound Douglas to southbound Sunrise and a tunnel on-ramp from northbound Sunrise to eastbound I-80. It extends the third outside westbound through-lane on Douglas over the bridge to connect to the eastbound I-80 loop on-ramp and, converts that single-lane loop on-ramp to a two-lane loop on-ramp.

The project also moves the westbound off-ramp signal to the east, realigns Oakridge Drive to maintain a signalized access to Sunrise and adds an auxiliary lane on eastbound I-80 from Douglas to Eureka Road.

Alamo-based R&L Brosamer Inc. is the general contractor on the project. Howard Michael, a key project engineer with Sacramento-based Stantec/URS, is the designer.

Deane Allin, R&L Brosamer's vice president and estimator, said it was difficult to minimize impacts to the always-heavy traffic and to get the tunnel and bridge completed before the winter rains, but workers were successful.

"We also provided the temporary support systems required to excavate under the Douglas bridge approach embankment-all the while with traffic moving overhead," Allin said.

Two views of a tunnel on-ramp from northbound Sunrise to eastbound Interstate 80. The tunnel and flyover bridge were designed to unclog the intersection of two at-grade streets, Sunrise Avenue and Douglas Boulevard (aerial photo, left, courtesy of Caltrans; photo, right, courtesy of city of Roseville).

Herndon agreed that the tunnel and bridge were key elements of the project, mainly because they were designed to "take cars away from the intersection of Sunrise and Douglas."

Hossein Naghibzadeh, the city's project engineer, said that the heavy winter rains delayed the project "minimally." By the time the first day of spring arrived, crews had poured 70 percent of the concrete for the tunnel, he said.

More than 60,000 cu. yds. of dirt was dug out of the ground to build the tunnel.

City officials estimate that 7,000 vehicles per day will use the tunnel, reducing the number of northbound left-turning vehicles at Sunrise and Douglas by 75 percent. The city recently held a public "Name That Tunnel" contest, and the winner will be announced this month by the Roseville Transportation Commission.

Funding for the current project came from developer-paid traffic impact-fees ($24.31 million) and the State Transportation Improvement Program ($10.69 million).