By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

March 24, 2016 -- The frenzy of construction on big projects that has produced no small number of traffic jams and a lot of headaches in downtown Santa Monica is starting to wind down.

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, City Manager Rick Cole offered this assessment: It could have been worse. (See the City construction projects updates smgov.net/bebp/)

“It’s been a headache,” Cole told the City Council in an update on the flurry of building.“Not the nightmare people predicted and expected. But it’s been discouraging.”

The construction has included the extension of the $1.5-billion light rail system from Culver City to Downtown Santa Monica and the $20 million replacement of the famed but aged California Incline,as well a number of privately financed projects.

Started in September 2011, the 6.6-mile extension of light rail to Santa Monica caused numerous street closures, including at one point in early 2014 a 10-day closure of roads near Fifth Street and Colorado from dawn until 11 p.m. so crews could install tracks.

The official start date for the project is May 20. Fencing on the final stretch is being completed and simulated tests of the trains on the line are underway every day ("Simulated Expo TTrain Runs Start in Santa Monica," March 23, 2016).

Metro officials say motorists and others will be seeing a lot of traffic-slowing at rail crossings.

May also should mark the completion of the City’s Esplanade near the new Expo Light Rail Station at 4th Street to to Ocean Avenue, the Pier and Palisades Park. When finished, the promenade will feature special landscaping and public art.

Summer also should see the opening of the newly built California Incline, which will improve and seismically update the 1930s structure. After years of delays, the project to demolish and rebuild the Incline started last April and is set for completion before July 4, according to Cole’s progress report.

The project has been an exercise in controlling anxiety for motorists in a city already known for its traffic congestion.

The Incline, which descends from Ocean Avenue to the Pacific Coast Highway, handled 15,000 vehicles daily before being closed forcing widespread detours that prolonged driving time.

Fears of a seemingly inevitable “Carmageddon” -- the nickname for the traffic nightmares predicted in 2011when Caltrans closed part of the 405 Freeway for widening -- did not become reality.

Monitoring of the detours that allowed quick changes to street signals and other precautions, however, were employed to help drivers cope with the closure.

With the Incline’s first reconstruction since the 1930s nearing completion, Cole sounded relieved Tuesday.

“There is light at the end of the Incline,” he said.

But there is still other construction underway. The replacement of 36 bollards along the Transit Mall Downtown is scheduled to start in April and is due to end this summer, the Palisades Park Landscape Replacement Project will begin in April and end in July, and the Santa Monica Pier Bridge Replacement is set to start construction in late 2019 and finish by early 2021.

The City’s 4th Street Pedestrian Improvement Project is set for completion next October, with the remaining work on landscaping, underground lighting, tree grates and sandblasting scheduled after Labor Day.

Meanwhile, work on City parking structures is ongoing and is expected to be completed in 2017, according to the update.

Private projects downtown heading to the finish line include construction at the Courtyard Marriott at 425 Colorado Avenue this summer and the Hampton Inn at 501 Colorado Avenue in the fall, according to the report.