K-Rail Traffic Dividers May Reduce Slowdowns on Interstate 10

Caltrans has completed work on new, movable traffic dividers on Interstate 10 between Cabazon and Whitewater, which may allow safer traffic management when emergencies force shutdowns on the freeway, authorities said this week.

The 10 through the San Gorgonio Pass is a key east-west transportation corridor for Southern California. Fatal crashes and other crashes, sometimes involving big rigs, occasionally prompt hours-long closures on the 10 for cleanups and investigations.

"In emergencies, this stretch of the freeway has left motorists jammed with no other route," Riverside County Fourth District Supervisor John Benoit said in a prepared statement. "The portable median breaks are now a tool in the kit for future freeway closures."

Sections of K-rail are not truly "portable." They are so heavy they are used by county flood control districts to protect homes from post-fire erosion and debris flows that carry large boulders and logs.

But each K-rail section's significant weight is one reason they serve as adequate traffic dividers. And individual sections of K-rail can be moved by heavy equipment operators, unlike permanent freeway guardrails and traffic dividers.

Permanent wood and metal guardrails separate opposite lanes of the 10 through much of the Pass and the Coachella Valley, according to Darin Schemmer, a spokesman for  Benoit.

Caltrans has removed sections of the permanent dividers and replaced them with K-rails that can be moved during emergencies, allowing the CHP and Caltrans to temporarily redirect traffic around lengthy tie-ups, according to Schemmer.

Permanent guardrails were replaced with K-rail barriers on two sections of the 10:

- 1.2 miles east of Main Street in Cabazon

- 1.7 miles west of Haugen-Lehmann Way

After a fatal crash shut down the westbound 10 for six hours in December, Benoit initiated meetings with Caltrans, the CHP, and Riverside County Transportation Department officials, Schemmer said. The movable median project arose from these discussions.

Riverside County is working with other agencies to explore bypass road solutions through the east Pass section of the 10 corridor, which Schemmer described as "constricted."

Benoit's Fourth District stretches from the Palm Springs area south to the Salton Sea and east to the Colorado River, and it is the largest district in the county.