State Route 178/Morning Drive Interchange
Award
Description
The $25.45 million State Route 178/Morning Drive Interchange Project opened in August 2015. The project replaced an at-grade T-intersection with a grade separated full-access interchange, and extended the four-lane freeway eastward for a distance of nearly two miles (from the point where the SR 178/Fairfax Road Interchange project ended to the Canteria Drive/Bedford Greens intersection with SR 178).
The project widened Morning Drive to three lanes in each direction on the north side of SR 178 and extended Morning Drive on the south side of the freeway. (Previously, Morning Drive did not connect with the south side of the freeway. Morning Drive extended north from SR 58, the region’s primary eastwest freeway, but ended at College Avenue approximately one-half mile south of SR 178.) Morning Drive now offers a direct connection between SR 178 and SR 58.
The project was managed by the Thomas Roads Improvement Program (TRIP), a unique partnership between the City of Bakersfield, County of Kern, Caltrans and the Kern Council of Governments. Funding for the SR 178/Morning Drive Interchange was included the 2005 Federal Transportation Act (SAFETEALu). Within this legislation, Congressman William M. Thomas (retired) secured $630 million for major transportation projects in the metropolitan Bakersfield area.
Additional TRIP improvements along this section of the SR 178 corridor have/will include a new interchange at Fairfax Road and a mile long extension of the freeway (completed in 2010), and a three mile long widening project east of the Morning Drive project (currently under construction). Together, these three projects address the transportation needs of current and future residential and commercial development in east Bakersfield.
Completion of the project has improved connectivity between neighborhoods on both sides of the freeway, and created opportunities for retail and commercial development in northeast Bakersfield.
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