The southbound side of the Corona (71) Expressway will be closed Friday evening and remain closed through the weekend while crews resurface and perform other work to complete an interchange improvement project.
The closure is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. Friday and last until 5 a.m. Monday. According to the Riverside County Transportation Commission, all three lanes of southbound Route 71 will be closed from Butterfield Ranch Road in Chino Hills to the Riverside (91) Freeway in Corona (a distance of approximately seven miles).
“The full closure will allow workers to safely complete work on the 71/91 Interchange project,” RCTC said in a statement. “Over the weekend, workers will work around the clock to remove pavement, grade soil, pour concrete, and mark a portion of the realigned 71 southbound lanes. This work will allow traffic to be shifted to the new lanes and create additional space for the new connection.”
The agency advised motorists using 71 to consider alternate routes, including the Pomona (60) Freeway, the Orange (57) Freeway and Interstate 15, to reach destinations normally accessible by the freeway.
Drivers traveling south on the highway this weekend will have to resort to a detour that takes them off the main artery and onto Interstate 60 via Euclid Avenue in Chino Hills.
The 71/91 intersection project has been running since February 2023.
Due to construction work, there are regular nighttime lane closures on Autobahn 91.
The $137 million project will replace the current single-lane connection from eastbound 91 to 71 with a two-lane connecting loop that will accommodate a larger number of vehicles.
In addition to widening the connector road itself, the project also includes adding an additional eastbound lane to 91 and realigning the Green River Road on-ramp. The expressway will also be realigned to accommodate the new connector road.
The project is expected to be completed next year.
More than a third of the project funding — $58.1 million — is provided by the California Road Repair & Accountability Act of 2017, which increased gasoline taxes to fund infrastructure and other projects. The county’s Measure A revenue, generated by a half-cent sales tax, also covers some of the cost, while the rest is funded by federal and other sources.
Project updates are available at rctc.org/7191closures.
