GoKawiilCaltrans builds $400M rock shed to reopen Yosemite's Highway 140
Caltrans has started building a 675-foot concrete rock shed over Highway 140 near Yosemite National Park, at a cost of about $400 million. The structure, expected to take about five years to complete, is designed to protect the highway from rockfall near the site of the 2006 Ferguson Slide, which buried the road and forced a traffic-light-controlled detour over two bridges.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The project suggests California views this stretch of highway as critical enough to merit a century-scale engineering solution rather than repeated patchwork repairs after slides. Caltrans project manager Corey Casey's description of the shed withstanding burial under 40 feet of rock in seconds indicates planners are designing for severe, possibly recurring geological events in the canyon. The scale of investment could also signal growing concern about access reliability to a major national park that depends on this route.
- Caltrans is building a $400 million, 675-foot rock shed over Highway 140 near Yosemite.
- The shed is meant to permanently protect the road from rockfall near the 2006 Ferguson Slide site.
- Construction began over the summer and the route is expected to reopen fully in about five years.
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Published there as: “California is building a $400M shield for Yosemite's most dangerous highway”
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