Business View Magazine | September 2019

232 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 improve traffic flow, be prepared for autonomous vehicles, and move our street infrastructure into the 21st century, too. “Related to that is recognizing that traffic and transit, and the ability for commerce to move unimpeded, are key. Rancho sits at the intersection of the 210, 10, and 15 freeways and it’s in a key area in terms of deliveries from the port, logistics, manufacturing, etc. We’re right at about the distance that a fully-loaded truck is going to drive from the port in one day, before it has to drop its merchandise and refuel. So, with that, and with our proximity to a number of railroad lines, has come the complication of how we juggle a lot of freeway traffic, street traffic, and railroad traffic. One of the keys to that is separating the major vehicular corridors from the railroad crossings. That lets the railroad line handle more trains on a daily basis and lets our key street network, especially where it services large logistic centers, flow unimpeded by the railroad traffic – both freight and passenger. “So, we have a very big project, right now– it’s about a $62 million project to separate rail from car/truck traffic on Etiwanda Avenue, which is the major arterial in our industrial area. We have a number of half-million to million-sq.-ft. warehouses on that corridor, even more if you count our two neighboring cities (Ontario and Fontana), because Etiwanda is the boundary between Rancho and our two neighbors. Right now, the street crosses the railroad at grade, which means that dozens of times a day, we’ve got trains crossing the rail line where Etiwanda Avenue meets the railroad. One of the problems with that is that it can stop traffic anywhere from a minute to ten or fifteen minutes when freight traffic is passing. “So, with this grade separation, we’re going to take the current at-grade crossing and move it vertically up into the air; we’ll have a bridge that will go up and over the railroad track in both directions. It will be able to handle heavy freight traffic. This will allow the continued expansion of this area; we’ve got a number of undeveloped 1585 Harmony Circle, Anaheim, CA 92807 License #733207 www.pacificutility.com (714) 970-6430 PROVIDING ELECTRIC LINE DISTRIBUTION ALONG WITH SERVICE AND MAINTENANCE SINCE 1997