VICTORVILLE, Calif. — Today, the City of Victorville announced that it will break ground on its Green Tree Extension on June 2.
The City will extend Green Tree Boulevard 1.5 miles from Hesperia Road to Ridgecrest/Yates Road connecting the communities of Victorville and Apple Valley. The Green Tree Extension will create another East/West corridor benefitting the Victor Valley and providing much-needed congestion relief to Bear Valley Road.
Today, the City of Victorville hosted a Groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the start of construction on this capital improvement project. Due to health order restrictions on public gatherings, attendance at the event was limited.
During the Ceremony, Victorville Mayor Debra Jones expressed the City’s enthusiasm for starting work on this project that has been 50 years in the making. The Green Tree Extension was first envisioned in the 1970’s. The project was added to the Victorville General Plan in 1988 and became a viable project in 2007.
Integral to the project is a 600-foot-long bridge that will travel over the BNSF railroad. When complete, it will be the longest bridge in Victorville. City officials estimate more than one million pounds of rebar and 24 million pounds of concrete will be used in the new bridge.
The City will add a traffic signal where Green Tree Boulevard connects with Ridgecrest Road and widen Ridgecrest to four lanes. The intersection of Green Tree Boulevard and Hesperia Road will also be widened, and new turn lanes will be added.
Bike lanes will be added throughout the length of the project creating a larger bike lane loop nearly seven miles long connecting the Mojave Riverwalk to Hesperia Road and 7th Street.
The City expects to use nearly 55 million pounds of asphalt and close to two billion pounds of dirt for the bridge and roadway combined.
“To bring an engineering marvel of this magnitude to reality requires not only great engineering, but also great vision, teamwork and collaboration,” said Victorville Mayor, Debra Jones. “We are extremely grateful to the Town of Apple Valley, County of San Bernardino and San Bernardino County Transportation Authority for helping us make this vision a reality.”
The Green Tree Extension will be completed for a total cost of approximately $46.8 million. San Bernardino County Transportation Authority will contribute $22.7 million, the City of Victorville $15 million, the Town of Apple Valley nearly $4 million, and the County of San Bernardino approximately $900,000. Additionally, a federal earmark of $4.2 million originally designated for the High Desert Corridor was authorized for construction of the Green Tree Extension.
To pay its portion, the City of Victorville has contributed $6.6 million in cash and is financing the remaining portion via a loan agreement with SBCTA that will be paid off utilizing future road development impact fees.
The City’s construction contractor, Skanska USA will break ground on the project June 2. Construction is expected to take 22 months to complete.
(source: City of Victorville news release)
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