IRWINDALE - A final list of eight proposed highway-rail grade separation projects proposed include five locations in the City of Industry.

The Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority has done several railroad underpasses and overpasses as part of phase one and is now outlining phase two projects.  The list for the second phase includes a crossing on Fullerton Road, two on Fairway Drive, one on Turnbull Canyon Road, and a fifth on Puente Avenue.  Other similar projects on the list include crossings in Pomona, Montebello, and Pico Rivera.

The Alameda Corridor-East’s Board of Directors last week approved the phase two recommended final list of eight.  The list will complete the agency’s program in eastern Los Angeles County.  The next step is to send the proposed projects to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments for adoption, which officials said would likely happen in February.

“ACE will reach a critical milestone this year with our first 14 projects under construction or completed,” said ACE Board Chairman David Gutierrez, Mayor of the City of San Gabriel.  “We will now focus on working with our funding partners and local jurisdictions on the final eight projects.”

Rick Richmond, the authority’s chief executive officer, said last week that the number of proposed projects exceeds the amount of funding that is available at this time and the list would need to be narrowed down further in the near future.

“The list will be restrained by the amount of money we can get ahold of,” he said.

The agency does not have additional state or federal funds at this time, he said.

The authority started on the highway-rail grade separations in the San Gabriel Valley in 1998 along the trade corridor where goods are carried to and from the San Pedro Bay ports.  The ports are the nation's busiest, with 44 percent of the country's containerized imports, 90 percent of California's imports, and 75 percent of its exports coming through there, according to authority officials. Close to 60 percent of the containers travel inland along the authority's trade corridor to destinations across the country.

*LA= Union Pacific Railroad Los Angeles (southerly) mainline route

*Alh = UPRR Alhambra (northerly) mainline route