Long Beach gets ‘Texas U-turn’

The tunnel “enables vehicles traveling on one side of a one-way frontage road to make a U-turn onto the opposite frontage road without stopping at a traffic signal.”

   The Port of Long Beach is touting the redesign of one its main roadways as a way to make trucking in the nation’s second-largest port safer and more efficient for drivers.
   Starting this weekend, truckers will have access to the “port access undercrossing,” a second tunnel near the intersection of Ocean Boulevard and State Route 47 on Terminal Island. 
   The opening of the second tunnel is part of the larger project to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge that spans the port. The $1.47 billion project will raise the bridge’s clearance 50 feet from the current 155-foot height above water. The bridge raising will allow larger containerships to reach marine terminals in Long Beach’s inner harbor. 
   The bridge’s developer said the second tunnel will allow “trucks and other vehicles to make a safe and free-flowing U-turn at the west end of the project.”
   The project’s developers dubbed the second tunnel a Texas U-turn, “so named because it’s a common feature at intersections in the Lone Star state (that) enables vehicles traveling on one side of a one-way frontage road to make a U-turn onto the opposite frontage road without stopping at a traffic signal.”
   The feature primarily will affect drivers leaving the Total Terminals International facility on Pier T. Starting Friday, construction crews will permanently close the eastbound Ocean Boulevard loop on-ramp from Pier T on Terminal Island. Trucks instead will be directed to the port access undercrossing. 
   The traffic feature also helped reduce the cost of the new project versus building and maintaining flyover ramps for vehicles entering and leaving Pier T, said Duane Kenagy, a capital programs executive for the Port of Long Beach. 
   “This nonstop U-turn is among many features of the new bridge that will provide a more efficient flow of cargo traffic in and out of our port,” Kenagy said.