GILROY
Crews have begun making way for the new Uvas Creek Bridge along Hecker Pass Highway.
Muddied tire trails have replaced trees and dense shrubbery near the intersection of Highway 152 and Burchell Road in northwestern Gilroy, and orange erosion nets and concrete dividers run along the north side of Hecker Pass, beginning west of the Gilroy Golf Course and continuing along the 52-year-old bridge that Uvas Creek has eroded throughout the years.
The two acres of cleared landscape just northwest and northeast of the current bridge is where the new roadway will run. That land belongs to the city, and a city-hired appraiser recently valued the land at $294,224, but CalTrans has yet to reply to the appraisal, so the state has not purchased the land quite yet, according to City Engineer Charlie Krueger.
“We haven’t heard back from CalTrans yet,” Krueger said, adding that there are no plans at this point for the city to re-purchase the land the current bridge runs over, because, “we really have no use for that.” CalTrans public information officers and the project’s chief engineer, Francis Mensah, did not return multiple messages by deadline Tuesday.
The prep work precedes the actual construction of the new bridge, which will occur between June and October in 2009 and 2010 at the behest of the state Department of Fish and Game, which restricted building activity to those drier months to avoid disrupting endangered steelhead trout, San Francisco dusky-footed woodrats and certain bat species that nest underneath the current bridge. After each period of construction, crews will clear materials and restore the site the best they can. Once the $10 million, state-funded project is complete in 2010, workers will also replace nearly two acres of leveled oak trees, according to state documents.
The more spacious roadway to the north also avoids uprooting any of the prized cedar trees lining the south side of Highway 152, and bike lanes along the improved roadway will add a new flavor to the roadway. The northern bike lane will also allow turns onto Burchell Road before continuing over the new bridge, and the stretch of road improvement will include wrapping a 1,136-foot retaining wall along the northeastern intersection of the scenic highway and Burchell Road.
Connecting the eastern edge of the bike lanes – where CalTrans improvements begin outside the Gilroy Golf Course – to Santa Teresa Boulevard will occur as residential development planned for both sides of the highway occurs, according to city officials. Development up to this point is what triggered state requirements for additional turning lanes, wider shoulders and other safety improvements to Highway 152.
