Motorists traveling eastbound on Interstate 580 over the Altamont Pass should expect to face delays due to storm damage, Caltrans said Tuesday.
The far right lane of the major artery linking the Bay Area with the Central Valley was shut down just east of North Flynn Road due to a failed retaining wall.
"There's not a lot of great detours," Caltrans spokesperson Bart Ney said. "Those of you thinking about Altamont Pass Road, not so great for trucks. It's a narrow, windy road. It'll get you around this, but think about delays."
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
A 250-foot section of the retaining wall, which supports the freeway, slid away amid the recent rains. Without that support, the material underneath the freeway shifted and now the roadway itself has started to crack, making that section undriveable.
Caltrans said it will look into restriping the section of freeway and turning the empty space along the left side of the freeway into a temporary lane of traffic, but crews can't do that until the road is dry.
"It may be possible for us to drive sheet piles, which can sort of reestablish the retaining wall for a period of time, giving us the capacity back, but it looks like we are looking at a rebuild of this area that we'll have to come back and report on once we have a design for it," Ney said. "In the short term, there are going to be delays on 580 while our engineers are looking at this. Our crews will go in as soon as we can and restripe to get one lane of capacity back. Then we'll be looking at a temporary fix and an ultimate fix."
