Beginning Monday, some commuters will need to find an alternate
route because the intersection of San Benito Street and Union Road
will be closed for three days.
Beginning Monday, some commuters will need to find an alternate route because the intersection of San Benito Street and Union Road will be closed for three days.
The San Benito County Public Works Department said San Benito Street will be blocked off about 100 feet from Union Road from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday for the installation of traffic lights on Union at its intersections with San Benito Street and Southside Road.
The $406,000 project to install traffic signals at the two intersections was approved by the Board of Supervisors in February. The plan calls for an added turn lane to make it easier for cars making right or left turns off of San Benito. The project includes increasing the height of the curve at the intersection to make it easier for cars to negotiate the westbound curve without greatly reducing speed.
The standards to hold up the traffic signals could not be ordered until the contract for the construction project was awarded in March. Public works officials said once all the parts have arrived, construction should only take about two weeks.
As a bonus, the traffic signals will not cost the county any money. The Measure A authority authorized $400,000 towards for improvements at Union and San Benito, with the understanding that any costs over that amount would be paid through the local Traffic Impact Fee account.
The approved budget included $150,000 for the Union/Southside installation, which will come through traffic impact fees.
Both intersections were evaluated by traffic engineers with Hexagon Consultants and met the required volume of traffic for installing signals.
