U.S. 50 Fixed But What Caused the Need For Repairs?

Road construction on U.S. 50 through Sacramento has been finished, but there is still work to be done to strengthen the pillars that support the highway.

Crews worked around the clock to remove and re-pour the concrete on both sides of the freeway between 18th and 24th Streets.

CC Myers is the contractor on the project.

"It was cracking and water was getting down to the steel and stuff like that," he says. "Putting this new deck on and tying in the old deck -structurally, it's going to go for a lot more years now."

Dennis Keaton with Caltrans says the department paid $3 million in bonuses to CC Myers and Sons for finishing each side of the project almost a week early. 

"We're talking about finishing six days earlier than the actual scheduled date.  The original costs were estimated at $46.2 million for the total of the project. Looks like we came in at $40.5 million -so almost $6 million in savings."

U.S. 50 from the I-5 Interchange to the Highway 99 Interchange is 30 city blocks.  Neither the contractor nor Caltrans has an explanation for why the only section in need of repair was the section above 18th to 24th Streets.

"Well you know these things are designed to live for only so long," Myers says. "And the life span at that time was about 40 years.  We're already at 40 some years already. So now what we're doing here is strengthening the columns and the decks. Hell, this bridge will go another 50 years or more."

Construction work under the freeway will continue through the winter.  Crews will strengthen the supports as part of a seismic retrofit on the road's support structures.