Hollister
– Since El Niño rains washed away two county bridges in 1998,
residents and public safety officials have complained that people
trying to cross the San Benito River near Hollister have to detour
to Cienega Road.
Hollister – Since El Niño rains washed away two county bridges in 1998, residents and public safety officials have complained that people trying to cross the San Benito River near Hollister have to detour to Cienega Road.
But that may change this year, as a new bridge at Nash Road is slated for completion, and work may finally begin on a bridge at Hospital Road.
Construction at the Nash Road crossing, located about half a mile west of San Benito High School, began last year. San Benito County Public Works Director Jerry Lo said state Department of Fish and Game restrictions brought a halt to work in the riverbed due to winter rains. However, he said construction has continued on the approach to the bridge, and work in the bed will resume in March or April. The project, budgeted at around $5 million, is scheduled to be finished by Oct. 1.
The Hospital Road crossing lies just south of Hollister near Southside Road. Lo hopes that work on the $9 million project starts by the end of the year, although he thinks it’s more likely to happen in 2008.
Jim Dellamonica, the county fire marshal, said detouring to Cienega Road can add several minutes to emergency response times.
“In all fairness, we’d very much like to see the bridge completed, but it’s been out for so long, we’ve gotten used to it,” Dellamonica said last week. “Obviously, there’s a longer response time. But has there been anything drastic so far? Knock on wood, no.”
Lo said that in addition to the normal design and approval process, there were specific factors delaying construction on both bridges. Unexpected litigation put Nash Road on hold for three years, while designing Hospital Road bridge along a fault line is a particular engineering challenge, Lo said.
Hollister resident Alfred Valenzuela said the Nash Road Bridge has been down for far too long. Valenzuela, 37, lives on the east side of the bridge, but his family owns rental property directly across the river, and he said he’d probably use the bridge on a daily basis if he could.
Since the bridge washed away, what should be a short walk across the river has become a drive of more than three miles, and his property’s inaccessibility has made it harder to rent out homes.
Supervisor Anthony Botelho said the delays are due in part to state and federal funding priorities, which focus on a bridge’s condition, not on how many people use it or how important it is.
“Nash Road should have been done 10 years ago,” Botelho said. “It’s frustrating … watching the roads deteriorate, while state and federal dollars go to things that should be a lower priority.”
Botelho argued that the state shouldn’t be funding small, rural bridges – such as the Hernandez Road low-river crossing, which was completed several years ago, or the Lone Tree Road bridge, which is slated to be repaired this year – while important projects on busy roads haven’t been finished.
Lo said the majority of bridge repair and construction dollars comes from the federal government, with additional dollars from the state.
“The county normally does not have the funding, so we love to get those freebies,” he said.
Lo acknowledged the state’s rating system can mean that high-traffic bridges get overlooked, but he said one of the system’s benefits is that it takes politics out of the equation.
“That’s pretty typical engineering criteria, to look at the bridge and not the people using it,” he said.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
