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After more than a decade of political wrangling, design revisions and permitting hurdles, Palo Alto is preparing to start reconstruction of the Newell Road bridge, a project that city leaders see as critical to bolstering flood control around the San Francisquito Creek.
The City Council approved on Monday a series of construction contracts totaling about $12 million for replacement of the 114-year-old bridge, which spans the creek between Newell Road and Woodland Avenue. The council had approved the project and the environmental analysis in June 2020, but the project has been in permitting limbo as city officials worked on getting approval from the state Department of Transportation.
The green light came when Caltrans authorized the city to move ahead with “advance construction,” an agreement in which the local agency foots the bill for the project with the expectation that the state will later reimburse it. Without that authorization, Palo Alto and East Palo Alto would have had to wait until next year to access the funding, according to Public Works staff.
Public Works Director Brad Eggleston said that the advance build is a “very routine thing in the highway bridge program.
“We do expect to eventually be reimbursed for these construction expenses,” Eggleston said.
Much of the cost of the $20-million project will be picked up by Palo Alto’s partners in the effort. The Caltrans program is expected to contribute $10.4 million for the project, while Valley Water will kick in $2 million and the city will spend $6.4 million. The city also has $2 million in earmarked state funds for the long-awaited project.
To get the work started, the council approved on June 16 a $9.4-million contract with Granite Construction Company for replacing the bridge and a $2.6-million deal with Zoon Engineering for construction management services. The project is expected to take about a two years to complete.
For Caltrans, the main objective is to improve transportation safety. The agency had deemed the 22-foot-wide bridge “structurally obsolete” nearly 15 years ago, making it eligible for state funding. The replacement bridge will be 44-feet wide and include 5-foot sidewalks and “sharrow” markings to improve safety for cyclists. It would nevertheless retain its current two-lane configuration.
For the communities on the two sides of the bridge, flood control is in some ways an even higher priority. Many have seen their homes damaged during major floods, when the volatile creek overtops and water spills out into the streets.
Mary Dimit was one of many Palo Alto residents who wrote to the council, urging city officials to approve the project. She recalled the Feb. 4, 1998, flood – the largest one on record – when the San Francisquito Creek overflowed onto the street and into neighboring homes.
“We called our neighbors to warn them of the flooding & then helped them place sandbags by their driveways, etc. in the early morning hours of the night,” Dimit wrote. “We were luckier than others whose homes were flooded. However, every time there are heavy rains we still worry, especially as the SF Creek overflowed again on January 1st, 2023 & on March 22, 2023, almost overflowed again.”
Xenia Hammer shared her sentiment and thanked the council for advancing the bridge replacement.
“This project is vitally important for public safety, for flood control on San Francisquito Creek and also for transportation improvements,” Hammer said at the June 16 meeting.
The benefits of the project are expected to go well beyond the immediate neighborhoods. The replacement of Newell Road bridge is seen as a necessary prerequisite to the Reach 2 project that is now being coordinated by the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority, a regional agency that includes Palo Alto, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and the water districts from the two counties on either side of the creek.
Reach 2 focuses on the area between U.S. Highway 101 and the Pope-Chaucer bridge between Palo Alto and Menlo Park. The partners in the regional agency are now in the process of reviewing Reach 2 options, which according to a recent analysis could include the replacement of the Pope-Chaucer bridge, widening of the channel and installation of floodwalls.
Because the Newell Road bridge sits downstream of these improvements, the creek authority cannot advance with its improvements until Newell is replaced. Otherwise, increased water capacity upstream would increase risk around Newell and Woodside roads.
The Mayor Ed Lauing called the city’s journey to the construction contract a “Herculean effort,” while Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker noted that the project cost has come in under the engineer’s estimate.
“I don’t think we ever see that, particularly with projects that take 13 years to get there,” Veenker said.
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