After years of planning, city of Santa Clarita officials are preparing to begin widening the Golden Valley Road bridge over the 14 freeway.

“We expect to begin in the next several weeks,” said Gail Morgan, city of Santa Clarita spokeswoman. “This has been on the books for several years. We’ve been working to get the funding.”

The project is expected to cost about $11 million with some of the funds coming from various funds within the city and a $4 million grant from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Morgan said. 

The two-lane bridge will be widened to add two more lanes, one in each direction, with a protected bicycle and pedestrian lane on each side of the bridge, she added. A left turn lane will be added to access the southbound Highway 14 and two left turn lanes will be added to access the northbound Highway 14.

“This is the top project for Canyon Country this year. It should take about 15 months to complete,” Morgan said. “It’ll be huge. A lot of people use that offramp to Highway 14, the shopping center, Golden Valley High.”

There will be no intermittent closures for the two lanes on the Golden Valley Road bridge. Both lanes are expected to remain open during the whole project, Morgan said. The Park & Ride entrance next to Golden Valley Road and the SR-14 may have intermittent closures during the bridge construction.

Morgan added that there may be some detouring off of the 14 freeway at night during the construction.

A contract for the project is expected to come before Santa Clarita City Council members go to bid.

“We look at the bids, see which one is best value and give a recommendation to the council,” Mogan said. “The council then decides if they want to go to the recommendation or another bid.”

The city council meeting for the bid decision will be open to the public. No date has been set yet.

“On behalf of the city of Santa Clarita, we are absolutely thrilled to be underway with this major project that will benefit Canyon Country and the entire city,” said Mayor Marsha McLean.