Vincent Thomas Bridge Shuts for 16 Months, Rerouting 53,000 Daily Vehicles

• San Pedro’s Vincent Thomas Bridge, which carries State Route 47, shut at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, with an early March 2028 reopening targeted.
• Caltrans sends traffic onto the 710 and 110 freeways, SR 103 and Harry Bridges Boulevard, with officers working 18 key intersections.
• Check the Caltrans QuickMap app before every trip: the bridge carries an average of 53,000 vehicles a day, and every one of them now needs another way across.

Where 53,000 Vehicles a Day Go Instead

The Vincent Thomas Bridge closed at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, and it stays shut for 16 months. Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, targets an early March 2028 reopening for the span, which carries State Route 47 over the Port of Los Angeles main channel between San Pedro and Terminal Island. Until then, every commuter, port worker and container truck that relied on it takes a different route.

Caltrans puts average daily traffic on the bridge at 53,000 vehicles, which adds up to 371,000 a week. Nearly 9 percent of that traffic is heavy trucks, a share that works out to just under 4,800 trucks a day. All of it now moves onto the freeways and surface streets around the ports and the neighborhoods between them.

The main detour corridors are Interstates 710 and 110, State Route 103 and Harry Bridges Boulevard. The agency resurfaced and striped roads and intersections on those routes, installed traffic cameras and placed temporary traffic signals. Traffic control officers now work 18 key intersections to direct traffic by hand. Caltrans also points drivers to its QuickMap traffic app, and GPS apps now route motorists around the bridge.

The Detour Routes, Trip by Trip

Drivers headed from San Pedro to Long Beach have a head start. Recent temporary closures for pre-construction work already taught locals the two main surface streets that link the communities: Anaheim Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

Terminal Island traffic uses Harry Bridges Boulevard, which feeds into State Route 47. The same boulevard is the way to the 710 Freeway, so one road serves two of the three trips.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker used his Oct. 29 State of the District address to describe a deal his office reached with Caltrans in the years before the project: detour streets had to be fixed and resurfaced ahead of the shutdown. He said that work is finished. A second round of paving is scheduled for February 2028, as the bridge reopens and the Summer Olympics approach.

McOsker also spelled out what the 16 months mean for the people who live near those streets. “For 16 months, this closure will have a significant impact on the people who live and work in our Harbor communities,” said Councilmember Tim McOsker. “We’ve worked closely with Caltrans to keep detour traffic out of our residential neighborhoods and secure road repairs and traffic enforcement. We’ll stay closely involved throughout the closure to address problems as they arise. Our residents deserve safe streets and a coordinated response they can count on.”

“Our communities,” McOsker said, “should not absorb the consequences of a major state infrastructure project without meaningful and enforceable mitigations.”

Trucks, Enforcement and the Neighborhood Streets

Heavy trucks make up nearly 9 percent of the bridge’s traffic, and Wilmington, where port-related traffic has already grown on local streets, is a particular concern. Police in the area are stepping up commercial trucking enforcement while the bridge is shut. McOsker addressed the problem in the same speech.

“It will have a major impact on traffic,” McOsker said, then pledged to hold disruption down where he can. “Throughout the closure, we will continue working to address traffic impacts, prevent trucks from cutting through residential neighborhoods and work with enforcement officers to ticket rogue truck drivers who violate posted restrictions.”

“We know the bridge closure is going to be disruptive,” the councilmember added. “But my responsibility is to make sure that the Harbor Area doesn’t just bear the burden of this project. We need to come out of it better.”

Posted truck restrictions are a target of enforcement, and a residential street that looks like a shortcut can be one where trucks are barred. Truck operators face the fuel side of the closure as well. In October, AAA’s state averages put California diesel at $8.50 a gallon.

The Port of Los Angeles is working to keep cargo flowing. “We’ve been working closely with Caltrans, our supply chain partners and local stakeholders to prepare for the Vincent Thomas Bridge closure,” said Gene Seroka, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director. “Our focus is on keeping cargo moving throughout the Port complex while helping workers and commuters navigate the closure and minimizing impacts on surrounding communities.”

Caltrans made the case for the closure itself. “Caltrans has been working hand-in-hand with our partners, residential and business communities, and all stakeholders in preparation for the 16-month closure of the Vincent Thomas Bridge,” said Gloria Roberts, Caltrans District 7 Director. “Our investment to replace the bridge deck will keep our communities connected and commerce moving through the San Pedro Bay Port Complex and the nation.”

Why a $750 Million Deck Replacement Could Not Wait

The bridge is structurally sound, Caltrans says, but the concrete deck keeps getting worse. The span has been in service more than 60 years: it opened Nov. 15, 1963, and carries the name of former California Assemblymember Vincent Thomas. Heavy traffic loading over its service life, along with the marine environment around the port, wore the deck down. Caltrans spent years on repairs and patches as problems appeared, and state officials now cite “concrete fatigue” as the reason a full deck replacement is required. Caltrans officials have said safety requires doing it now, and that it could not be postponed further.

The $750 million deck replacement project takes out the whole concrete roadway in sections, together with the center median, railing, fencing and signage. Crews also modernize safety features and put in better seismic sensors. Skanska and California Engineering Contractors, working as the Skanska-CEC Joint Venture, deliver the job under a construction manager/general contractor arrangement. In that arrangement the contractor works with Caltrans before the closure on constructibility reviews and cost estimates.

Construction comes in three phases. The preliminary phase put temporary work platforms, stairs and structural braces in place. The second is the 16-month full closure that began Saturday. The third starts after traffic returns in early 2028: Caltrans takes out the temporary features and adds new seismic sensors and utilities.

The look stays the same. State officials said that includes the blue LED decorative lights, though the span goes relatively dark for the 16 months. Caltrans spokesperson Diana K. Jimenez said the only illumination will come from the red lights atop the two towers and the ship lights above the channel. The suspension bridge measures 6,060 feet, with a 1,500-foot main span, towers 365 feet tall and 185 feet of water clearance. Caltrans says the work keeps it operational for another 70 years.

What Drivers Should Do Now, and What Comes After 2028

Plan for the bridge to stay closed until early March 2028. Open QuickMap, the Caltrans traffic app, before each trip and check that your GPS app is current, as Caltrans says routing apps were updated for the closure. Leave extra time at the 18 intersections with traffic control officers. Stay off residential streets with posted truck restrictions.

The longer story is a possible replacement. Port and state officials signed a partnership aboard the Battleship Iowa in July to start work on a full replacement. Early port projections run $3 billion to $5 billion, the port has set aside $5 million toward the goal, and the whole effort, from planning through construction, could take up to 10 years. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy gave Seroka verbal encouragement and said the federal government could look at helping with the cost.

“The port envisions a completely new bridge to meet future requirements to be built after re-decking of the current bridge is complete. Community is top of mind here, as we want to minimize the current closure time,” the port said in a July statement. “It’s important for us to collaborate with our transportation partners, engineering experts and others to get a full picture of what is feasible.”

Seroka has been direct about what he wants. “I’d like to see a new bridge built,” Seroka said in June, when Duffy visited. “I’d like to see it wider and taller and have safety lanes. But there’s a lot between ‘here and there.’”

The current bridge has four lanes, two in each direction, and no pull-off lane for a disabled vehicle. A new bridge would be taller and wider, with six lanes and emergency shoulders on both sides, and the height counts: 40 percent of the port’s terminals sit behind the bridge, and larger container vessels need more clearance to reach them. Early critics called the idea of the original span a “bridge to nowhere,” and a successor could rise parallel to it while the current span stays open.

The Long Beach International Bridge shows the scale of such a build. It opened in 2020 following a decade of planning and cost $1.46 billion, against an estimate of $950 million when it was approved in 2010, a gap of $510 million.

Los Angeles drivers have one more enforcement change coming. Los Angeles speed camera fines of $50 to $500 begin in late December at the first cameras the city switched on Oct. 26.

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar

Sources

• Caltrans: 16-Month Closure of Vincent Thomas Bridge Set for Nov. 7
• Caltrans: Vincent Thomas Bridge Fact Sheet, Fall / Winter 2026-27
• Daily Breeze: Life without the Vincent Thomas Bridge

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