Albion Bridge Stewards to confront Caltrans at meeting Tuesday about plan changes for the iconic bridge
MENDOCINO Co., 8/9/24 — Caltrans has a snazzy new Albion River Bridge website sporting simulations of what three replacement bridges could look like. A viewer can take a virtual drive on new concrete arched or non-arched bridges and even get a hawk’s eye view of what they would look like from above. But the activist group the Albion Bridge Stewards will have a key question for the state agency at a Aug. 13 public meeting about the rollout: “When did Caltrans stop considering rehabilitation or replacement and go straight to replacing the bridge?” asks the Stewards’ Jim Heid.
Caltrans has spent a decade telling the Albion community that its two tall Highway 1 bridges would need to be replaced. Then, after battling community resistance from 2010-2017, Caltrans promised to consider rehabilitation on equal footing with a replacement for the Albion River Bridge. All documents said, “replace or rehabilitate.”
The Salmon Creek Bridge, located less than a mile away, had no rehabilitation option and was set for replacement before the Albion River Bridge. Caltrans had Salmon Creek Bridge on the schedule to start in 2025 but then a serious problem with soil contamination under that bridge was discovered, resulting in a new process with an uncertain completion date.
Then in July, Caltrans put forward Albion River Bridge, which was supposed to be replaced or rehabilitated after Salmon Creek, as a $135 million replacement-only project. Said Heid: “There was a process, and the community said they wanted to consider rehabilitation. We were waiting to hear more about rehabilitation. Now that option has disappeared. We plan to ask why.”
Manny Machado, spokesman for Caltrans in Mendocino County, provided the following response by email: “The rehabilitation alternatives were extensively analyzed. During the analysis of proposed alternatives, the rehab alternatives did not meet the purpose and need of the project. The rehabilitation alternatives did not improve roadway alignment and sight distance at the north of the bridge that has been indicated as a priority improvement for Caltrans by Mendocino County. The rehab alternatives would also conflict with the policies and priorities of the California Coastal Plan. For these reasons and others, the rehab alternatives were eliminated from consideration.”
Heid said Caltrans is expected to work with the community and seek additional community input before coming to any decision about rehabilitation. He said Caltrans is motivated to replace the bridge because maintenance comes out of the Caltrans budget while federal funds would pay for most of the replacement cost: “What strikes us about Caltrans’ plans is a fundamental lack of imagination. It’s more of a budgetary shell game than it is a genuine transportation infrastructure need.”
Caltrans insists the bridge is outdated, too narrow, and dangerous in an earthquake or tsunami. But apart from natural disasters, the agency does not say it presents any danger now or in the future.
“If the bridge were dangerous they would be required to close it tomorrow,” said Heid. “It doesn’t even have a weight limit.”
California’s last tall wooden highway bridge
The Stewards emerged from a community effort that began a few years after the turn of the century to save a unique and beloved community icon. The Albion River Bridge is the last tall wooden highway bridge in California. It was built during World War II when war rationing made steel unavailable. Redwood of sufficient size was mostly gone by World War II and was declared off-limits by the war rationing board, which rejected the original concrete design. Everything had to be recycled. The steel girder deck that stands on wooden legs was an old railroad bridge from the famous Feather River Canyon. The legs were old-growth Douglas Fir trees trucked in from Oregon for the critical replacement effort.
But don’t all bridges have to be replaced someday? Heid points to reports and articles posted on the Stewards website from engineers and old-growth wood experts. For example, Dr. Hassan Astaneh, a UC Berkeley engineering professor, got involved in the process back in 2014, criticizing Caltrans for saying the Albion River Bridge had to be replaced and accusing the state agency of distorting facts to meet its goals.
“Take the Golden Gate Bridge,” Heid continued. “It is also functionally obsolete and it does not meet current design standards. But that bridge is regularly maintained and it is going to be around for decades or centuries.”
Heid said that Caltrans has not been performing needed maintenance on the Albion River Bridge nor has it done the obvious work that would prolong its life.
The Stewards field about 12 people at their monthly meetings, which have been held via Zoom since the pandemic. The group includes an architect, planners, local preservationists, and environmentalists, Heid said.
Environmentalists got more involved a decade ago when Caltrans said the old bridge would have to be trucked away to a toxic waste site, possibly out of state at an enormous cost. Plus, the state agency wasn’t even sure if any waste facility could take it. Caltrans has no current estimate for the cost of post-demolition removal of the bridge, nor does it have an answer on whether there is any place that will take it. Still, Machado said demolition is estimated at less than $5 million.
Locals demanded the bridge be recycled and repurposed if it had to be taken down. During the years of back and forth with Caltrans over the bridge, locals got Albion River Bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historic Resources. “That was very hard to do,” said Heid of the effort by fellow members of the Stewards. He said it does not stop the bridge from being destroyed, but it does make it more difficult.
The Albion Bridge Stewards have formed an alliance with a group, Keep Big Sur Wild, that is fighting Caltrans’ efforts to upgrade the railings on California’s second most famous bridge (after the Golden Gate), in Big Sur.
The Stewards learned that Monterey County’s Board of Supervisors and planning commission have been involved in the battle, with planners turning down Caltrans and the board denying the state’s appeal. “Here the county is mostly just a rubber stamp for whatever Caltrans wants,” Heid said, referring to Mendocino County.
Heid has also learned that in other parts of the state where historic preservation is deemed important, narrow bridges have a light at both ends that a bicyclist can activate and ride across safely. He also points out that many other bridges and sections of Highway 1 are also nearly impassable for bicycles, including Big River Bridge at the entrance to Mendocino.
At one time, Caltrans had a plan to replace both of Albion’s towering bridges at once, leaving Albion stranded in the middle. That proposal, in particular, drew community blowback. Caltrans had pitched it as a way to get all the delays over at once, but quickly changed its plans to do the bridges one at a time.
Heid said the project will cause years of unneeded delays and cripple businesses like the two upscale restaurants and Inns that are at opposite ends of the bridge, as well as the Albion Grocery and the Albion River Campground & Flats Cafe, the big campground under the bridge that fills up with visitors. Many tourists come up State Highway 128 to visit the entire Mendocino Coast, not just Albion.
“With three to five years of delays, they might just decide to go to Napa instead,” predicted Heid. Caltrans has argued that a new bridge would be a boon to the local economy for decades to come. They have also said in past interviews that many people favor the new bridge but are less vocal than the Stewards.
Caltrans has a survey on its new website. When this reporter tried the poll, all the answer choices were reasons Caltrans says the bridge needs to be replaced, ranging from better safety to the undocumented need for metal railings instead of wood.
“I tried the first question on the survey and there was nothing among the choices about any interest in historic preservation or any choices I wanted to make. So that was it for me,” said Heid. “That’s not a survey, that’s a sales job.
Timeline of bridge replacement projects
In the email, Machado wrote that the bridge provided a fantastic service but is simply at the end of its functional life. “As a testament to the expert Caltrans crews, the bridge has been maintained for 80 years, far exceeding the service life. The culmination of deficiencies of the bridge has indicated the need for replacement. The replacement alternatives are consistent with internal policies for advancing the multimodal network and with the California Coastal Plan.”
Machado provided the following timeline for the two Albion replacement projects:
•The Salmon Creek Bridge project began the project approval and environmental document phase in July 2024 with construction scheduled to begin in 2030. Early estimates indicate three to five years of construction.
•The Albion River Bridge project is scheduled for construction in 2027. Depending on the alternative selected, construction is estimated to take between three and five years.
No other bridges on the Mendocino Coast from Navarro to Westport are currently set for replacement. Upgrades are being done to the Jack Peters Creek Bridge just north of Mendocino. The Hare Creek Bridge had been on the schedule for an upgrade or even replacement over the past 13 years but was recently taken off the schedule by Caltrans.
The Albion Bridge meeting is Tuesday, August 13, 6-7:30 p.m. at Whitesboro Grange, 32510 Navarro Ridge Road, Albion. Caltrans asks that people take the survey on the Albion Bridge website and RSVP to info@albionriverbridgeproject.com
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