HWY 138 DETOUR TESTS PLANNED FOR NEW BRIDGE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PEARBLOSSOM - Caltrans will detour Highway 138 traffic around Pearblossom for four days next week to let work crews drill for soil samples at a promised new Big Rock Wash bridge.

A five-mile section of highway will be closed to through traffic, with motorists directed on a 10-mile detour onto Avenue T, though local people will be allowed through to their homes and businesses, Caltrans officials said.

The highway will be closed to allow for drilling operations that will provide information for designing a wider Big Rock Wash bridge to replace the infamous ``twin bridges,'' where head-on crashes have killed five people since 1995.

Because the area has few paved roads, the detour will run between 116th Street East and 165th Street East, on both sides of Pearblossom, even though the drilling work is going on just west of 165th Street East.

The four-day detour is expected to hurt local businesses that cater to on highway travelers, as well as inconvenience people trying to get around town, townsfolk said.

``That's a bummer,'' said Jeanette Watson, manager of Pearblossom Chevron. ``We get lot of business from people passing through.''

``That's going to affect my business a lot,'' said Joan Austin of Pearblossom Antiques. ``The biggest part of my business is travelers.''

Caltrans officials said they would try to minimize the inconvenience.

The drilling work is a follow-up to a promise made by Caltrans a year ago to budget money for replacing the two bridges that carry Highway 138 over the wide, sandy Big Rock Wash. The new bridge has been estimated to cost about $14 million.

Caltrans District Director Douglas R. Failing, in a letter last August to then-Assemblyman Phil Wyman, said the highway over Big Rock Wash would be widened to four lanes, plus a center divider lane, with construction expected to begin in fall 2005.

Caltrans spokeswoman Judy Gish said Wednesday that no schedule had been adopted yet for building the bridge.

Design work had not started, she said, and any time line could be affected by the state budget crisis.

The bridges near 165th Street East have been the scene of numerous crashes, including ones that killed three people in 1995, one man in 1999 and a woman in 2000.

In March 2002, Caltrans agreed to pay $3 million to three families involved in the 1995 crash, which happened when a pickup truck carrying six adults and seven children was hit head-on by a compact car crossing the double yellow line.

An attorney who represented the families in the 1995 crash told state lawmakers that the bridges were the site of six times the expected number of fatal and serious-injury crashes and collisions.

The area is the only stretch of highway for several miles where drivers have no shoulder to drive onto in case an oncoming vehicle crosses the center line. Also a dip in the roadway east of the bridges hides approaching vehicles from eastbound traffic.

Charles F. Bostwick, [phone]

chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- color in AV edition only) A truck and car pass each other on one of the quite narrow and tricky Twin Bridges on Highway 138 across the Big Rock Wash. Traffic across the bridges will be detoured for four days to prepare to replace the dangerous crossings.

(2) Traffic over Highway 138 heads through the town of Pearblossom.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

Map:

HIGHWAY DETOUR