The Lagunitas Creek Bridge, an 86-year-old crossing that serves as the gateway to Point Reyes Station, will be replaced under a plan by Caltrans.
The agency has just extended a comment period through June 20 to get input from the public on a number of designs for the new 150-foot span, which would not likely be opened until after 2020.
“This structure erected a long time ago is rapidly approaching the end of its useful life and it sits on a fault line,” said Steve Williams, Caltrans spokesman.
Short and long steel truss bridges, a concrete girder bridge and a suspension span have been suggested as alternatives by Caltrans.
The current bridge has been determined to be seismically deficient and retrofitting the span deemed infeasible due to its age.
“Any seismic retrofit work, required for the existing structure, probably couldn’t be fully implemented,” Williams said. “The current structure was built in 1929 and will more than likely require larger structural components and connections to meet current seismic design criteria.”
The new bridge project is estimated to cost $5.8 million. A draft of an environmental review document will be made available for public review and comment in mid-2016. The final environmental document is expected to be issued by early 2017 and design completion will be in late 2018.
Construction is then expected to last about two to three years. A temporary one-lane configuration across the creek would have to be established as a detour.
Inverness resident and Marin historian Dewey Livingston is hoping that a retrofit will be an option to hold onto the small town feel of the span.
“It’s a modest structure, but iconic to West Marin,” Livingston said. “The idea of having a bridge that is 16 feet wider and with a modern look has rubbed some people the wrong way.”
The crossing of Lagunitas Creek at the bridge’s locale has been part of Marin dating back to the Coast Miwok, he said. When settlers arrived a small ferry was used to get people across the creek and a house was opened nearby for travelers.
In the 1870s a wood bridge was built to span the creek and helped facilitate commerce from agricultural lands in West Marin. It also was used by people coming from San Francisco who wanted to see the wide open spaces of West Marin, Livingston said.
Marin approved a road bond in 1925 that helped see the constructions of roads, including what was known as the Sir Francis Drake Highway — not boulevard. A party to celebrate its opening was held in Olema, with the new roadway ending at the bridge site. While construction of the span started in 1929, it didn’t open to the public until Feb. 22, 1930.
“It has served the area ever since,” Livingston said.
Comments on the bridge project can be sent to Oliver Iberien, district branch chief, California Department of Transportation, District 4, office of environmental analysis, P.O. Box 23660, Oakland, 94623 or emailed to lagunitas_bridge@dot.ca.gov.
