Visalia City Coach bus routes heading south on Mooney Boulevard will be detoured starting next week as road crews work on a street-widening project.

Starting Monday, southbound transit buses will jog east to Divisadero Street between Walnut and Whitendale avenues. People who would normally get on or off the southbound buses on Mooney will now have two stops on Walnut, two on Divisadero and one on Whitendale before the route jogs back to Mooney.

Northbound buses won't be affected by this detour.

Caltrans will be working through the winter of 2009 on a project to widen Mooney Boulevard from four to six lanes between Highway 198 and Packwood Creek. Work on the southbound section between Walnut and Whitendale, expected to last for a couple of months, is the second of six phases of the $12 million project.

An earlier detour sent southbound buses off to the west between College of the Sequoias and the Visalia Mall.

If you're a regular rider of the Visalia City Coach buses, how are these detours affecting you? Use the comment button at the bottom of this entry to sound off.

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