91 Freeway 'Weekend Crunch' affecting Riverside traffic

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- Drivers in Riverside beware: Construction could cause a major traffic crunch this weekend along the 91 Freeway through downtown Riverside. Caltrans officials are calling it the 91 Freeway "Weekend Crunch."

The project started Friday at 9 p.m., narrowing the freeway to only two lanes in each direction on the 91 between 14th Street and Central Avenue.

Also, there will be full freeway closures on the westbound side of up to 10 minutes every hour, over and over again through the weekend.

Caltrans says there could be backups of two to four hours each way.

The lane restrictions and rolling closures are set to run until 5 a.m. Monday. Both of the transitions from the eastbound and the westbound 60 Freeway to the 91 Freeway will be closed, with the exception of a few hours on Sunday morning. Side streets in downtown Riverside are expected to be jammed as well.

"If you do not need to go to Riverside this weekend, do not travel this direction," said Caltrans spokeswoman Terri Kasinga.

In order to build a new railroad bridge over the freeway, crews need to pound dozens of massive support beams into the ground using a large, very noisy machine called a pile-driver.

Because residents have become so irritated by all the noise, Caltrans has decided to get the project done a lot faster than scheduled. But to do that requires a lot of work over the weekend, resulting in congested traffic.