Metro Board Member John Fasana (holding the scissors) with school officials and civic leaders at the ceremony this morning. State Senator Carol Liu is fourth from right. The $2.3M sound wall, background, streches one-half mile along the 210 Freeway directly across from the Duarte High School campus. Photo by Gayle Anderson/Metro.

Here’s the news release from Metro:

Metro held a ribbon-cutting ceremony this morning to celebrate the completion of the $2.3-million Duarte Sound wall project on the north side of the 210 freeway between Highland Avenue and Buena Vista Street in the City of Duarte. The long awaited half-mile sound wall will provide noise mitigation to adjacent Duarte schools and nearby residents along the I-210 freeway.

“The new Duarte sound wall adjacent to Northview Intermediate and Duarte High Schools is a welcome addition that will reduce excessive noise and create a better environment for teaching and learning on our campuses” said John Fasana, Councilmember, City of Duarte and Metro Board of Director. “I appreciate the cooperative effort by Caltrans and Metro to work with our city during construction.”

O’Donnell Construction Inc. of San Dimas was the project’s general contractor. Tetra Tech Inc. of Irvine was the designer on the project. Caltrans managed the construction contract. Metro managed the design contract with Caltrans oversight. “Caltrans is very pleased that, with the help of funding from Metro, we are able to provide noise relief to Duarte residents living near the freeway,” said Caltrans District 7 Director Mike Miles. “It is particularly gratifying that the sound wall will make it quieter for students at the nearby school.”

School board officials and students from the Duarte High School Jazz Band participated in today’s ceremony. “The Duarte Unified School District joins the city of Duarte in celebrating the completion of the sound wall along the north side of the 210 freeway,” said Duarte Unified School District, School Board President, Pam Kawasaki. “On behalf of the Board of Education we would like to extend our appreciation to all the individuals who made this possible.”