Vincent Thomas Bridge Closes Eastbound for Five Nights Before 16-Month Shutdown

Crews are bracing the San Pedro span's underside before Caltrans closes it entirely for a $752.8 million deck replacement.

Starting at 10:45 p.m. Sunday, nobody will drive east across the Vincent Thomas Bridge until 6:45 the next morning. Then it happens again, five nights running.

The overnight shutdowns are prep work, Caltrans said in an Oct. 8 traffic notice: crews are installing working platforms and structural bracing under the roadway. They're getting ready for the main event, when the green span between San Pedro and Terminal Island closes completely for 16 months starting at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 7.

No road gets San Pedro to Terminal Island, its port terminals and Long Beach more directly, according to the agency's project FAQ. Once it's shut, Caltrans expects drivers to come onto the island from two sides: north over the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge, and east via I-710's Gerald Desmond Bridge, with Henry Ford Avenue, Alameda Street and West Harry Bridges Boulevard as possible detour streets.

Here's what Caltrans has posted, in order:

• Saturday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.: The right lane of southbound State Route 47 closes between Ferry Street and Harbor Boulevard for maintenance.
• Sunday night through Friday morning, 10:45 p.m. to 6:45 a.m.: Northbound SR-47 closes between Harbor Boulevard and Ferry Street, which stops all eastbound travel over the bridge toward Long Beach. Drivers also lose the Gaffey Street and Channel Street on-ramps to northbound SR-47, plus the connector from southbound I-110 to northbound SR-47. The posted detour runs along Pacific Coast Highway to Route 103, then back to Route 47.
• Wednesday, 6 to 8 p.m.: Caltrans holds a virtual community meeting on the closure, Patch reported.
• Nov. 7, 12:01 a.m.: The full closure begins. Caltrans is targeting a reopening in early March 2028.

Weather or operational trouble can change any of it, including dates, times and the number of closures, the agency warned, and it points drivers to its QuickMap traffic site before they head out. Night drivers have seen this routine before: Caltrans posted overnight-closure notices for the bridge almost every week from late March through mid-August.

The bridge isn't falling down. Caltrans calls it structurally sound. The trouble is the deck, the concrete people actually drive on, which the agency says is wearing out fast from heavy traffic loads and six decades in a marine environment. Its railings and median barrier also don't meet current federal safety-hardware standards, according to the FAQ, so the $752.8 million job replaces those along with the fences and seismic sensors.

Caltrans weighed keeping some lanes open during the work and chose one long, total shutdown instead, citing safety, efficiency and cost after hearing from agencies, neighborhood councils and the public. Crews will work around the clock. The 16-month estimate assumes a 24-hour workday.

Somebody did ask about a boat. A ferry carried people from San Pedro to Terminal Island before the bridge opened in 1963, and Caltrans says it talked with the Port of Los Angeles about bringing one back for the closure. The port called it infeasible: ferries would have to cross the Main Channel through ship traffic, and it'd need landings, boats, operators and parking. So the detours are bridges.

The big closure was supposed to start six days earlier. On Sept. 25, Caltrans moved it to Nov. 7 to allow for final coordination and said the delay wouldn't touch the March 2028 target.

That target has money riding on it. The project will be fully reimbursed under the federal infrastructure law only if it meets its construction and delivery deadlines, Caltrans says, and it's scheduled to finish before the 2028 Olympics.

Source: secretlosangeles.com, retrieved October 9, 2026. Other sources: State of California, State of California (2), patch.com, State of California (3), State of California (4).