Vincent Thomas Bridge Closes November 7 for 16 Months as Caltrans Begins a $750 Million Deck Replacement
Caltrans will close the Vincent Thomas Bridge, carrying State Route 47 between San Pedro and Terminal Island, to all traffic on November 7 for a 16-month deck replacement, with harbor traffic detoured onto the Heim Bridge, Interstate 710 and harbor boulevards.
One of the Los Angeles harbor region's key links goes dark next week. Caltrans will close the Vincent Thomas Bridge, which carries State Route 47 between San Pedro and Terminal Island, to all traffic beginning November 7 for 16 months. The agency says the more than 60-year-old bridge's concrete deck is severely deteriorated; crews will replace the deck, center median, railing, fencing and signage and modernize other components, in a project Caltrans lists at $750 million. The bridge is expected to reopen in early 2028, before the 2028 Olympic Games.
Detour routes are expected to send traffic to and from Terminal Island via the Commodore Schuyler F. Heim Bridge on State Route 47 from the north and the Gerald Desmond Bridge on Interstate 710 from the east, using streets including West Harry Bridges Boulevard, Alameda Street and Henry Ford Avenue. Caltrans says it aims to push commercial trucks off city streets and onto the freeway system, Pacific Coast Highway is not expected to be a designated detour, traffic control officers will be posted at 18 key intersections as needed, and local police will expand commercial-truck enforcement. About 53,000 vehicles a day use the bridge, nearly 9 percent of them heavy trucks.
The Port of Los Angeles says all of its terminals will remain open with no expected impact to cargo productivity, flow or capacity during the closure. A separate $130 million State Route 47 interchange project, led jointly by the Port of Los Angeles and Caltrans, is already under construction, with completion scheduled for December 2026.
