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A safer O’Byrnes Ferry Road bridge will come at a high price and will be a stretch for local governments even if federal funding is secured, consultants noted Wednesday during an open house on plans to improve the Stanislaus River crossing. The bridge’s deficiencies in width and seismic stability make it eligible for federal highway funds, but $10 million allocated thus far falls short of the $30 million or more needed for a viable upgrade, according to Rob Houghton, project manager and former Calaveras County public works director.
The bridge is likely to be replaced rather than widened mainly due to the seismic concerns. Whatever the final cost tally, local matching funds must total 10 percent of the spending on a new bridge and the approach is unlikely to garner many, if any, federal dollars, Houghton said. That is a bitter pill to swallow when much of the problem surrounding the now-55-year-old bridge is that a steep downgrade from the Tuolumne County side can and has led to big-rig trucks losing control and crashing through its guardrails, he said. Calaveras County is responsible for the bridge under a 1997 agreement that also put Tuolumne County in charge of the Parrotts Ferry Road crossing. In 2005, the county received notice it was eligible for the $10 million but an initial feasibility study by Stantec Consulting gave estimates ranging from $42 million to a whopping $160 million to replace the bridge. Sticker shock delayed the project but Houghton said engineering contractor T.Y. Lin International, based in San Francisco, which has done work on the Bay Bridge, came on in January and has some ideas about bringing the cost within a reasonable range that could then be requested from the federal government for additional funding, Houghton said. “We don’t have anything finalized yet but we do have some renewed optimism,” he said. Mark Ashley, a senior vice president for T.Y. Lin, said work to replace the O’Byrnes Ferry bridge would come from the company’s Sacramento office and be most similar to the First Street Bridge project in Napa. Fielding questions from a standing-room-only audience at the Copperopolis Fire Station, Calaveras County Deputy Public Works Director Jonathan Mitchell said the bridge work would be planned to avoid overlap with proposed upgrades to the winding “Wagon Trail” section of Highway 4, between Copperopolis and Angels Camp. Ashley added that O’Byrnes Ferry Road would close probably only for a single weekend for construction when the final tie-ins are done at each end of the bridge if it is replaced. It would be closed much longer if the existing structure is widened. Houghton said the old bridge would likely have to be demolished upon completion of a new span for purposes of potential liability. That work is being considered in the project’s budget. He also said boat speed limits in the affected area would be set by the Tri-Dam Project that manages Tulloch Reservoir or local jurisdictions. Environmental review of the bridge plan is scheduled to begin later this year with construction to begin as soon as mid-2015 and completion in mid-2017. |