Caltrans work to force nighttime Highway 101 lane closures in northern Sonoma County

Caltrans crews began work Monday night on a 6-month project to replace drainage culverts along an 8-mile stretch of Highway 101 in northern Sonoma County that will require a number of one-lane closures.

The closures will be between Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg and Canyon Road in Geyserville and the work should be completed by late October, Caltrans spokesman Jeff Weiss said.

The 25 culverts, which channel water away from the road surface, “have reached the end of their useful life,” he said.

Working Sunday through Thursday, from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., crews will close one freeway lane on either northbound or southbound Highway 101. Northbound and southbound closures will not occur on the same night.

“We know we’ll be closing one lane, going north or south,” Weiss said. “But after several weeks, we can’t say which direction the closure will be in, because we don’t know the condition of the culverts, or how long the work will take in each direction.”

The lane closures will be about one mile long, allowing crews to saw through concrete and asphalt, install the new sections of culvert and repave with the same materials.

Caltrans has been working on the pipes and culverts along the right shoulder of the freeway, with little effect on traffic. But the culverts that run beneath the road can’t be replaced without lane closures.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.