Caltrans Road widening site shut after three incidents.

The California Dept. of Transportation’s decision to completely close a three-mile section of state Route 138 in Southern California means a month could be shaved off a $44-million widening project. But more importantly, it means construction crews can work without fear of road rage.

 “By having full access to the site and not having to piecemeal it together, we are now able to do it all at once,” says Alex W. Medyn, project executive with the California district of Skanska USA Civil West, which has the $37-million contract to widen Route 138. It is a narrow, two-lane mountainous highway connecting the high desert regions of Antelope Valley and the Inland Empire. The often foggy road is called “Blood Alley” because it has been the site of fatal collisions.

The 14-mile-long project, which broke ground last April, includes widening shoulders by 8 ft, adding a lane in each direction, a four-ft median and two truck-only lanes. Work is currently 65% complete, says Medyn, with “the big push” under way to install 30-ft-deep drainage pipes and to blast away a 35-ft- by-50-ft chunk of stone from the face of Mormon Rock, a local landmark.

Trouble began last summer when a portion of the project, located near Interstate 15 and the city of Wrightwood, was closed to traffic except for two-hour escorts each day in the morning and evening. Drivers either had to wait in long lines or take a 45-minute detour around I-15 to get to and from the city.

In September, an angry motorist refused to slow down and plowed his car into a flagman, throwing the flagger onto the hood and injuring his knee. The driver was arrested, and the worker could not walk for a few months, says Medyn. 

Then in November, an elderly woman “got confused and ran over” a road worker with her van, breaking his back, says Medyn. A third incident followed in January when a driver pulled a gun and shot a flagman in the leg. “It was a BB gun, but our guys thought it was real,” says Medyn.  This last event prompted Caltrans to completely close the last three miles of the project from June 11 until its scheduled completion Sept. 11. State patrol officers will be on site 24 hours a day, says Medyn.

“It’s a sad commentary when the conditions in a work zone require this kind of step to be taken,” says Jennifer Gavin, spokesperson for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “Road workers have very dangerous jobs under the best of circumstances, but to have to put up with assaults from the public is ridiculous.”

Caltrans declined to comment. Medyn and Gavin say they have never seen such violence on a road project. “We always encounter difficulties with public traffic, but we never had road rage where somebody actually purposely ran over one of our employees,” says Medyn.