Underpass to Replace Railroad Crossing on Baldwin Avenue in El Monte

A groundbreaking ceremony was held today for a $75.9 million project to build a four-lane roadway and underpass to replace a railroad crossing on a major roadway in El Monte.

The rail crossing is north of Valley Boulevard on Baldwin Avenue, which is a major north-south roadway that connects the San Bernardino (10) and Foothill (210) freeways.

"Today's groundbreaking marks the start of a project that will eliminate train delays, locomotive horn blasts, deadly crossing collisions; help improve our region's air quality; and create 1,370 jobs over two years of construction,'' said San Gabriel City Councilman David Gutierrez.

Baldwin Avenue is used daily by 28,000 vehicles, including significant truck traffic, but is blocked by an average of 20 Union Pacific freight trains daily.

Baldwin Avenue will be closed for construction this summer, and the project is expected to be finished in 2015.

The project is part of a program of grade separations along the Alameda Corridor-East Trade Corridor, which accommodates about 60 percent of the containers moved from the nation's busiest container ports in San Pedro Bay to the rest of the country via the region's rail network.

- City News Service

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