But officials have warned that the size of the project will have to be scaled back by $150 million if Caltrans doesn’t meet deadlines tied to the funding. That could include losing the Empire Interchange, according to Caltrans officials, said Principal Planner David Kriske in a presentation to the City Council earlier this month.
“If state money lapses and gets spent somewhere else, we do have a funding shortfall,” Kriske said.
The change called for by state officials involves the closure of San Fernando Boulevard.
The city had agreed in March to the closure of part of San Fernando Boulevard near the freeway after crews finished the Empire Interchange.
San Fernando ultimately would become discontinuous, but motorists would use the improvements created by the Empire Interchange to get around the area.
Now, Caltrans would like to close San Fernando first, before going to work on the Empire Interchange, to accommodate work on a 24-inch petroleum pipeline. Another reason for the early closure is to facilitate moving a fiber optic line that runs through a large part of the area, according to a city report.
Moving up the San Fernando Boulevard closure is being pitched as a vital part of keeping on schedule, but City Council members say they’re wary of spurring a three-year shut down of the street with little public notice.
Roughly 20,000 vehicles a day pass through the quarter-mile long closure point, Kriske said.
The City Council agreed to original plan “with considerable trepidation,” Councilman Dave Golonski said, adding that the main issue was ensuring that a neighborhood not be cut off from a whole section of town.
