City to Complete Dyer Street Repaving This Week, Night Work Scheduled for Tuesday

The bulk of a month-long Dyer Street repavement and construction project is scheduled to wrap up this week, city staff said.

The Dyer Street Rehabilitation Project began July 25 not only to repave the road but to improve wheelchair access ramps along Dyer Street and eliminate on-street parking in the stretch between Alvarado-Niles and the Union Pacific Railroad Crossing.

Eliminating on-street parking will give space for a new five-foot-wide bike lane to run on each side of Dyer Street, said Mintze Cheng, director of Union City’s Public Works Department.

Over the last few weeks, construction crews have worked to improve the concrete ramps on the intersections of Dyer Street and Alvarado-Niles Road and Dyer Street and Alvarado Boulevard.

Repaving will be completed by Wednesday, Cheng said. Monday’s work wrapped up at 3 p.m.

Night work is tentatively scheduled to take place on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning between Whipple Road and Courthouse Drive, beginning at midnight. Staff estimates that it will be complete by 6 a.m. Wednesday, if not sooner, Cheng said.

After a break for the morning commute, construction will continue from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday. All of the major paving and concrete work should be completed by then, according to Cheng.

The remaining work will include installing pavement markers, raising utility structures and installing traffic signal detectors. That work is to be completed by early September.

The work schedule was designed so as not to disrupt the morning and evening peak traffic hours. However, the roadwork has still given some residents grief.

Anthony Gamez, a local teen who asked Union City Patch to follow up on the road work, said his family has experienced delays of up to 20 minutes to get from Alvarado-Niles Road to Whipple Road.

Krystal Gonzalez said that since the road work began, she has avoided Dyer Street when possible.

Gonzalez visits her grandparents daily. On Thursday, she said, she spent 15 minutes in the turning lane to get onto Alvarado-Niles Road. Growing impatient, she made a U-turn, went back up Alvarado Boulevard and caught the freeway.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said via Twitter.

Ashraf Dahud, another local teen, said that he bypasses the congestion by hopping on I-880 via Alvarado-Niles Road and exiting on Whipple Road to get to the other side. If the freeway’s full, he said, he takes Smith Street to Union City Boulevard to Whipple Road.

“A lil’ more gas gone but it beats sitting in traffic,” he said.

The Dyer Street Rehabilitation Project was approved at a Feb. 22 City Council meeting. A public hearing on the proposed night work and parking elimination was held, with notices mailed to adjacent property owners and businesses prior to the meeting. The city received no objections, Cheng said.

According to a staff report presented to City Council in February, Dyer Street carries about 25,000 vehicles a day and has started to experience significant surface deterioration.

The bulk of the project, estimated to cost about $1 million, is funded through an $860,000 Metropolitan Transportation Commission Block Grant. The remainder will be paid by the city through Measure B funds.