Hate that Dumbarton Bridge frontage road?

Yeah, I do, too. Well, sometime in the next four years, your wishes for change will come true ... but with a little intermediate pain along the way.

The San Francisco Examiner reports:

While work to replace the eastern span of the Bay Bridge continues, Caltrans is preparing to make $220 million in seismic upgrades to another commuter span — the Dumbarton Bridge.

Construction is slated to begin next year on the retrofit of the 1.6-mile bridge, which connects Menlo Park on the Peninsula to Fremont in the East Bay.

... In addition, Caltrans also plans to include about $3 million in other improvements around the bridge, including enhanced public access outlooks, resurfacing the existing parking lots and frontage roads on the bridge approaches, building a new bridge overlook and widening bike and pedestrian access, according to BCDC documents.

On the downside, however, the article also points out that "several weekend closures" of the entire bridge will be necessary to raise the deck by 5 inches -- temporarily taking away the only direct bicycle access from the Peninsula to the East Bay. This could make planning rides somewhat dicey unless we get word of the closings far in advance.