OCTA officials announced Thursday that the 405 Freeway at Fairview Road in Costa Mesa is scheduled to fully close overnight on Saturday, March 9 and Saturday, March 16, as part of the I-405 Improvement Project.
The full freeway closures, along with overnight closures of the Fairview Road bridge and adjacent freeway ramps and connectors, are necessary to demolish part of the bridge over the freeway. The closures are scheduled from approximately 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. on March 9-10 and March 16-17, weather permitting.
During both overnight freeway closures, drivers will be detoured off the freeway at the Fairview Road off-ramps and back onto I-405 past the Fairview Road bridge.
Click here for local detours.
Click here for freeway detours.
Other overnight closures include:
- Northbound SR-73 to northbound I-405 connector
- Northbound I-405 off-ramps to Susan Street and Harbor Boulevard
- Northbound I-405 on-ramp from Fairview Road
- Southbound I-405 to southbound SR-73 connector
- Southbound I-405 and SR-73 on-ramps from Fairview Road
- Detours will be in place to guide drivers around the closures.
Drivers should expect delays in the area and are encouraged to use alternate routes if possible. Up-to-date closure and construction information is available on the project’s interactive map at octa.net/405map.
The $1.9 billion I-405 Improvement Project will add one regular lane in each direction between Euclid Street and I-605, and a second lane in each direction in the center of the freeway from SR-73 to I-605 that will combine with the existing carpool lanes to form the 405 Express Lanes.
The Fairview Road bridge is the fifth of more than 18 bridges to be built, widened or replaced as part of the project, which will speed up travel times on I-405 between Costa Mesa and the Los Angeles County line, an area traveled by more than 370,000 vehicles a day.
The bridge is expected to take approximately to two years to reconstruct. It will be demolished and reconstructed in two stages, allowing it to remain open to traffic during construction.
Once completed, the Fairview Road bridge will continue to have 10 traffic lanes, along with sidewalks and bike lanes in both directions. Traffic lanes and sidewalks will be widened, and a 4-foot-wide center median will be added to the bridge.
This 16-mile segment of I-405 is one of the most heavily traveled stretches of highway in the nation, and both the regular lanes and carpool lanes are heavily congested during rush hour and on weekends. The project is critical to accommodate expected employment, population and housing growth throughout the region.
It currently takes drivers about an hour to travel this section of freeway during rush hour, and without the project, the commute is projected to double in the next 20 years. Once the project is finished in 2023, it is expected to take about 30 minutes to drive the 16 miles during rush hour in the regular lanes and about 15 minutes in the 405 Express Lanes.
People are encouraged to visit the project website at www.octa.net/405improvement to sign up for construction alerts via automated call, text message or email.