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SACRAMENTO-

Traffic on Highways 50, 99 and 80 already isn’t fun at commute times, but it’s going to get a whole lot worse in a few weeks.

Many say when the W/X Viaduct project begins, it’s going to be an eight-week nightmare.

“It’s going to be gridlock on the surface streets and there will be significant delays on the freeways,” said Linda Tucker with the City of Sacramento.

City officials and residents  are not looking forward to the road project that is barreling towards them. It will be a frustrating, serious situation that CalTrans has held more than 400 meetings about.

“It’s going to be scary and we urge everyone strongly to come up with a plan in advance,” Tucker said.

Those plans should involve working from home if you can, carpooling, altering your drive times and taking public transportation when possible.

“If you are nine months pregnant, you do not want to be in the car at 5 o’clock if you have a choice. If you have an illness or an injury, if you need to be in the hospital for a planned event, you may want to leave in the non commute hours,” West Sacramento Fire Chief Rick Martin said.

Along with the W/X Viaduct project, the Pioneer Bridge is also being resurfaced and the I-80 HOV lane expansion project will be going on.

To help with traffic, CalTrans announced Monday that they will only work on the bridge at night, and during the first phase of the W/X project, they will stop work on I-80 and extend the eastbound lane from 3 to 4 lanes to help alleviate traffic.

City officials have also come up with their own plans.

“We will be monitoring the situation. We will be changing the traffic signal timing when ever we can,” said Tucker.

For West Sacramento, the already frustrating situation will be worse since much of their city relies on bridges to get around. Emergency crews already say plan on longer response times.

“I think this particular project is going to affect public safety quite a bit. We just don’t know how and we don’t know when,” Martin said.

For more information on this traffic situation and alternative routs log onto www.fix50.com.