San Bernardino, CA, May 3, 2011, 8:00am – At the San Bernardino City and County Conference on April 28th, Dr. Ray Wolfe, District 8 Director for Caltrans, announced that progress to date on the emergency repairs on State Route 330 are well ahead of schedule. Given this, Dr. Wolfe stated “we are targeting opening the highway to traffic before the 4th of July holiday absent some unforeseen issue.” Additionally he added “we are also attempting to perform enough work to hopefully open the highway for the Memorial Day weekend- even if we return to limited use after the holiday weekend. Without the focused efforts of everyone engaged in this work, the reality of traffic restoration on the highway would be months in the future,” stated Dr. Wolfe. He continued to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the project’s partners including Skanska and SEMA Construction, the US Forest Service, California Highway Patrol and the Federal Highway Administration. Caltrans is optimistic but cautions the public that a great deal of work remains to be completed and with that lies potential risks that could force these dates to change. Currently, State Route 330 is open to one-way commuter passenger vehicles from Monday to Friday for down bound traffic between 6am to 8am and up bound traffic from 4pm to 6pm. State Route 330 was originally projected to take over two years to repair. That time frame was narrowed down to 11 months. Commuters and local merchants in Big Bear welcome the news that Caltrans is now projecting this route will be permanently opened by the July 4th holiday with the potential to re-open for Memorial Day weekend.
