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Community Corner

SMART Railroad Work to Start Soon on East Cotati Avenue

How will the expected road closure impact you?

 

In an informational release yesterday the SMART District announced their continued railroad work for Rohnert Park, Cotati, and the surrounding areas. Part of that work involves reconstructing the railroad crossings around town.

The crossing impacted will be at Golf Course Drive, Copeland Creek pedestrian crossings, Southwest Boulevard, and East Coati Avenue.

Find out what's happening in Rohnert Park-Cotatiwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the release they stated that East Cotati Avenue is tentatively scheduled to be closed with a detour in place at the railroad tracks. If the work in not completed by August 17 then work will be required to be completed between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. to avoid impacting school traffic.

Overall the work on that crossing is required to be performed on Fridays through Sundays to reduce the impact of any possible detours.

Find out what's happening in Rohnert Park-Cotatiwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A call placed to Mike Howard, who works at Stacy and Witbeck, allowed the Patch to confirm that right now they are tentatively targeting August 2 to August 5 for that crossing to be reconstructed. Howard is handling the coordination for this project in Sonoma County.

The ideas of detours in that location is interesting as there are no simple redirect options. The nearest road that passes over the railroad tracks to East Cotati Avenue is via Southwest Boulevard to the north. A driver would have to drive a route of Camino Colegio to Southwest Boulevard to Adrian Drive, a distance of 2.1 miles, instead of driving along the .5 mile route that could be closed just shy of the railroad tracks.

However from our discussion with Howard, it seems a full closure will be required to properly perform a reconstruction to the approved specifications of the SMART line. They are supposed to have continuous track run over crossings. In order to do that a complete road closure would be required for at least a short time to allow the work to be done and the long pieces of track to be placed.

While they know it will be an inconvenience to drivers in that area, the goal is to work multiple shifts and complete the job as quickly as possible.

The Patch will keep you updated on SMART news as well as pending road closures that affect our community as they are announced.

 

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