An Ortega Highway construction project is about to interfere with a lot of travel plans.
After the Fourth of July holiday weekend concludes, Caltrans intends to close the Ortega Highway, or Highway 74, nightly in both directions at a point in the Cleveland National Forest east of the Riverside-Orange county line.
The full closures will take place on weeknights, Caltrans spokesperson Kimberly Cherry said. The road will be open to traffic on Saturday and Sunday nights. That pattern begins Tuesday, July 6.
Then, starting around the middle of the month, a small section of the two-lane mountainous road will close all weekend long — every other weekend, Cherry said.
During the closures, she said, people won’t be able to drive across the forest between Riverside and Orange counties; they will have to take another route such as the 91 Freeway. Passes issued to mountain community residents no longer will be valid and no one will be allowed to drive through the work zone, she said.
“There is no through access. They have to go around,” Cherry said. “It’s just not going to be safe for anyone to pass because it is narrow.”
The closures stem from a four-year, $49 million project Caltrans launched in late winter to make driving conditions safer along 6 miles of the road. Crews continue to remove trees and shrubs to clear a path for the improvements, which will extend from Monte Vista Street just west of Lake Elsinore to the Riverside-Orange county line, according to a news release.
The project involves widening the travel lanes to 12 feet, constructing 4-foot-wide shoulders and installing rumble strips in the center and on the sides.
The first nightly closure is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. Tuesday and end at 5 a.m. Wednesday, July 7. Cherry said the work will be confined to a section a half-mile wide or less near the popular candy store landmark, or Ortega Oaks Candy Store and Goods.
Mountain residents who live east of the closure zone will be able to drive down to Lake Elsinore, but won’t be able to head west and cross over to Orange County, Cherry said. Those who live in communities to the west will be able to drive to Orange County, but not east to Riverside County cities, she said.
The 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. closures will continue each weekday, with the work zone shifting night to night as progress is made, Cherry said. Along with those shifts will come changes in driving options for mountain residents, she said.
As for the 55-hour, all-weekend-long closures, those debut in mid-July.
The first begins at 10 p.m. Friday, July 16 and concludes at 5 a.m. Monday, July 19, a news release states. Cherry emphasized that residents possessing passes won’t be allowed to drive through the zone then, either. All motorists will be turned around, she said.
All-weekend closures also are scheduled for July 30-Aug. 2, Aug.13-16 and Aug. 27-30, the news release states. Motorists can expect more 55-hour closures after that.
On weekdays, Cherry added, during the two hours leading up to the full closures, pilot vehicles will escort cars through the area one direction at a time from 8 to 10 p.m.
She said the road will close at 10 p.m. “sharp.”
“We will not let any stragglers in,” she said.
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