Caltrans will host public update meetings this month and in February to discuss project status and schedules for the impending full, but temporary, closure of the heavily traveled Vincent Thomas Bridge, which is anticipated by the end of the year.
The crucial bridge spans across the Port of Los Angeles from San Pedro to Terminal Island but will have to be closed for some 16 months to accommodate needed repairs, which will begin in the fall-winter of 2026.
The start of the full closure was moved back recently from summer 2026. Partial, periodic overnight closures are already ongoing now as preparations get underway for the $700 million job that will replace the aging and damaged roadway on the mile-long, 4-lane green connector over water that opened in 1963.
The iconic green suspension bridge arching over the Port of Los Angeles’ Main Channel to Terminal Island gets heavy use, including traffic that is directly associated with port workers and cargo movement. It is also a popular and well-traveled connector for commuters going between San Pedro and Long Beach to the east.
Detours have been identified by Caltrans but those will also carry their own potential issues for local communities.
Billed as community open houses, two meetings will be held in person — separately in Wilmington and San Pedro on different dates — with a third meeting scheduled that will be a virtual online session only, but will also offer public participation remotely.
The meeting schedule is:
6-8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, at the Wilmington Recreation Center, 325 N. Neptune Ave., Wilmington.
6-8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 2, a virtual meeting with registration via Webex.
5:30 to 7:45 p.m. Monday, Feb. 9, at the San Pedro Regional Branch Library, 931 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro.
The meetings will focus on the initiation of construction, which is now underway with preliminary preparations, and the overall schedule.
Those attending the meetings will receive a presentation from Caltrans personnel detailing the project’s status and preliminary construction work scheduled to occur throughout 2026. The entire project is currently expect to be complete in winter 2027-28, before the start of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
A question-and-answer period will be included at each of the update meetings, and recordings subsequently will be shared online.
Skanska-CEC Joint Venture is the general contractor for the project.
While the bridge is “structurally sound,” Caltrans has said, the deck “is rapidly deteriorating.”
Factors for the decline — despite making short-term repairs through the years — include concrete “fatigue” caused by heavy traffic, environmental deterioration because of age and the marine environment, according to information Caltrans has posted.
The project will replace the entire bridge deck and its seismic sensors. Also being replaced are the bridge railings, fences and median barrier. The look and design of the bridge will stay the same, Caltrans officials have said.
“The purpose of this project is to preserve the operations, functionality and structural integrity of the bridge deck,” the Caltrans website says.
The project has also sparked discussions about whether to raise the bridge higher — which Caltrans said could not be done simultaneously with the deck project as requested by Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka — or to embark on a long and costly plan to build a new, wider and taller bridge. More available height will be needed over the channel to accommodate the growing numbers of newer, cleaner cargo ships already calling on the port, port officials have said.