Hare Creek Bridge narrow, terrifying for bicyclists or pedestrians, railings crumbling, cracks all over- letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

The Hare Creek Bridge is a deadly hazard for bicyclists who use it going to Mendocino or Caspar from Fort Bragg or from the opposite direction to Fort Bragg. It’s dangerous because many cars, trucks and SUVs heading south from Fort Bragg or points north travel over it. The bridge was built in 1947 and is in very bad condition. According to Frank Hartzell, Caltrans had the bridge on its list of deck replacements for more than 15 years, then suddenly removed it just as the work was beginning on the Jack Peters Creek Bridge. We will be looking into why that happened and what will be done in the future about the Hare Creek Bridge.

The bridge doesn’t have enough space for cars, trucks, motorcyclists, bicyclists and SUVs going both ways across it. The old bridge is extremely dangerous and fatal accidents have occurred there over the years. The bridge is so narrow that there isn’t any room for bike lanes. Bicycles are forced to either take up the whole lane or hope that no one will hit them while the car passes them.

More cars and SUVs are crossing the bridge heading south during the vacation season. Many long distance bicyclists who are riding from as far north as Washington State down to Southern California and even Mexico must use the Hare Creek Bridge. The scenic route along the coast is well known to bicyclists from Germany and numerous other countries, including Canada. Why have this scary, narrow, spot as the welcome to Fort Bragg to trekkers from the south?

A 58-year-old motorcyclist collided with 2 cars that stopped on the bridge ahead of him on June 9, 2008. He died from the resulting injuries. According the Advocate News, a pedestrian was injured near Hare Creek bridge on 7/22/2019. There were four serious vehicle-pedestrian accidents in 15 days on Highway 1 between Mendocino and in Fort Bragg that year according to the Fort Bragg Advocate.

I worked for a bicycle delivery service in Santa Barbara for 6 years when Santa Barbara’s human population was approximately 60,000. I rode in the streets delivering many heavy and strangely shaped objects. Some times I carried blueprint sets that weighed as much as 75 lbs. to building sites.

I never had an accident with a car while I was delivering on my bicycle. There was never any place along any of my routes between downtown Santa Barbara and the University of California 9 miles north of Santa Barbara that was as dangerous as the Hare Creek Bridge.

Sincerely Ed Oberweiser

The Hare Creek Bridge’s whole name is the Sgt. Emil Evenson Memorial Bridge. The bridge was named for a Fort Bragg man who died fighting the Japanese on the Aleutian Islands, which are part of Alaska. Alaska was a U.S territory at the time.

Because the Hare Creek Bridge has a short span over the water-200 feet it has existed in a similar form longer than the other bigger tall bridges, like the Noyo Bridge, Albion Bridge and Russian Gulch Bridge. Before those bridges were built, driving the Mendocino Coast was far more arduous, requiring long, winding trips down to low bridges.

Two other low short, bridges, Pudding Creek Bridge north of Fort Bragg, and the Jack Peters Creek Bridge just north of Mendocino, were all rated as structurally sound in 2020. All three suffered from deteriorated concrete deck railings and all were rated too narrow for modern traffic. The railings were falling apart to different degrees. Caltrans set to work making the drive from Big River Bridge to Inglenook safter. At the same time, Caltrans did a highway widening project that ran from south of Elk to just past of the Jack Peters Creek Bridge. And now, Caltrans is widening and improving sidewalks all the way from north of the Pudding Creek Bridge to the Hare Creek Bridge. Will the Hare Creek Bridge, with its scary lanes, be something of a stop to all the work?

All suffered from a critical design error, where water managed to get into the rebar, causing chemical reactions with the iron that resulted in the crumbling. The deck of the Hare Creek bridge is 26 feet wide while the Jack Peters Creek and Pudding Creek sister bridges are now more than 40 feet wide each

Editor’s Note- Ed will be reporting on the issue of what will be done about the Hare Creek Bridge. Manny Machado of Caltrans will be helping him get information for the story. If you have a story about this bridge, please write to frankhartzell@gmail.com and we will relay to Ed.