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Completed Bay Area Road Projects
Completed Bay Area Road Projects Ongoing Bay Area Road Projects Using BART/CalTrain Using FasTrak Great Sites And More
The 880/280/17/Stevens Creek (San Jose) Project
MISSION: Trying to go from N-280 to either direction of 880/17 or Santana Row/Valley Fair Mall had long been more confusing and challenging than it had to be. The ramp for N-880 ran to the left of, and under, the ramp to S-17—no other interchange in the area that I know of had this configuration.
Having lived in the area for some time, I used this interchange often, and on at least 75% of my uses, another driver would belatedly realize the unusual setup and swerve out of his lane at he last minute. And once you did reach N-880, you were forced to share the ramp with entering/exiting Stevens Creek Blvd. traffic—which, because of the nearby mall, could get quite heavy at times.
Ground broke on improvements at this junction and surrounding roads in 2012; they were completed in 2015:
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N-280 to N-880 traffic now has a brand new "outside" lane that does not share ramps for Stevens Creek Blvd. The old N-880 ramp was converted into a Stevens Creek Blvd. exit-only ramp.
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The old loop ramps from 280/880 to Stevens Creek were replaced with signalized T-ramps,
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S-880's ramp to Stevens Creek was moved and improved, and a special ramp from S-880 to Monroe Street (a parallel road that runs along the east side of Valley Fair Mall) was constructed to allow mall visitors to bypass Stevens Creek entirely—reducing congestion there, and
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The Stevens Creek Blvd. overpass for 880 was widened, sidewalked and beautified.
The Kato Road (Fremont) Underpass Project
MISSION: To facilitate BART's extension into Santa Clara County, Kato Road needed to be lowered under existing UPRR tracks (which BART tracks will run alongside.) That's pretty much the gist of it; photos will show the now-completed project at various intervals of construction. This is not to be confused with the portion of Kato that runs north/south over Mission Blvd. in Fremont that was recently improved.
The excavation of Warren, October 2013. Sorry about the window.
View of the temporary lights at Warren Avenue/Kato Road, October 2013. Photo taken from a parking lot near the SE corner of the intersection.
Here's Warren at Kato westbound, emerging FROM the underpass in August 2014.
The excavation of Warren, October 2013. Sorry about the window.
The Warren Avenue (Fremont) Underpass Project
MISSION: To facilitate BART's extension into Santa Clara County, Warren Avenue—which only a few years ago underwent major work when the Mission Blvd./I-880 interchange was redone—needed to be lowered under existing UPRR tracks (which BART tracks will run alongside.) That's pretty much the gist of it; photos will show the now-completed project at various intervals of construction.
Here is the Kato Road excavation in February 2013, with the existing UPRR tracks still raised.
A few months later, the project is taking shape. This photo faces eastbound, toward Warm Springs Blvd.
This is the bridge on which the new BART tracks will one day rest; photo taken in early 2014.
Here is the Kato Road excavation in February 2013, with the existing UPRR tracks still raised.
You are viewing the ramp from 280N to 17S in June 2014. The ramp to 880N runs LEFT OF and UNDER this one—confusing. The new ramp is under construction to the (FAR more common) right.
View of the grading for the new 880S ramp to Stevens Creek Boulevard, taken from north side of Stevens Creek in June 2014. 880 is seen in the rear of photo.
A new signal at one of the garage exits onto Monroe, February 2016. Monroe goes in BOTH directions and drivers can legally turn in BOTH directions as indicated by the sign. So why the arrow?
You are viewing the ramp from 280N to 17S in June 2014. The ramp to 880N runs LEFT OF and UNDER this one—confusing. The new ramp is under construction to the (FAR more common) right.
The Cherry Avenue/Sanchez Street/Almaden Ranch (San Jose) Project
MISSION: With a Bass Pro Shop store as the hub of a new shopping center at the SE corner of Almaden Expressway and Cherry Avenues in San Jose—slightly north of the Almaden/State Route 85 junction—a new access road to the center was needed to handle the extra traffic at what is already a busy, congested area.
Sanchez Street, which begins at Blossom Hill Road, ran about ½-mile before terminating at the elevated SR-85. Though it's a residential strip of road, Sanchez is wide and durable—more than capable of handling shopping center traffic headed to/from Blossom Hill Road.
Heading up Almaden Expwy. north, Cherry Avenue is the first intersection drivers reach, shared with a stub of road that is named Chynoweth Avenue for no other discernable reason than to confuse deliverymen—the primary Chynoweth Avenue runs well east of this area.
This project does away with the Chynoweth naming—the road becomes an extension of Cherry. Also, Sanchez was extended under SR-85 to connect with the widened, lengthened Cherry, creating a crucial bypass to the congested Almaden/85 corridor—this will serve not only shoppers at the new shopping center, but also at the existing center on the NE corner of Almaden/Cherry.
This pic shows the Sanchez Street terminus pre-construction, the fence added in anticipation of beginning work.
By June 2014, the Sanchez extension is in full swing.
In October 2015, the Chynoweth sign suspended from the signal hadn't been replaced. Now (February 2016) it has.
This pic shows the Sanchez Street terminus pre-construction, the fence added in anticipation of beginning work.
The Fremont Blvd. (Milpitas) Extension Project
MISSION: The Crossings, a development company, wanted to build on the land situated just west of Interstate 880 between State Route 262 and Dixon Landing Road. Since no road led there, a long-proposed extension of Fremont Blvd. southbound to an existing T-intersection with Dixon Landing and McCarthy Blvd. was given the green light.
Fremont is a long, durable road that terminated at a creek just south of the existing Bayside District—extending it southward to connect with McCarthy allows commuters another option should 880 become congested in the area; there are many roads in the Bayside District capable of handling more traffic, but not much traffic in the area.
Work on the roughly 2/3-mile road began in early 2014 and wrapped in mid-2015.
In the summer of 2014, the final few hundred feet of Fremont Blvd. was closed; southbound traffic was forced onto Lakeview Blvd.
Past the barrier, this is what construction looked like at the very southern tip of Fremont Blvd. in summer 2014. Facing southbound.
October 2015: some of our earliest construction images were taken here, but over a fence.
In the summer of 2014, the final few hundred feet of Fremont Blvd. was closed; southbound traffic was forced onto Lakeview Blvd.