The community is digesting the negligence and coverups that allowed a $12 million unsafe bicycle bridge to rise over Interstate 5 and Riverside Boulevard.
Meantime, Inside Sacramento discovered archival documents that show how the city set the stage for the bridge fiasco by delaying the Sacramento River Parkway bike trail for nearly 50 years.
After announcing a river levee bike trail in 1975, the city let a small group of property owners in Pocket and Little Pocket block the parkway’s completion.
Today, neighborhoods across Sacramento pay the price.
The latest setback involves the improperly built bike bridge over the freeway at Riverside. Almost 47 years after discussing the bike span, City Hall finally moved to construct the overpass in 2022.
This August, with the new bridge finished and ready for bikes and pedestrians, authorities realized the structure featured “nonconforming” materials. They ordered it torn down.
In a letter to builder Mountain Methods of Tuolumne, city engineer Adam Randolph writes, “The City finds that the lightweight concrete and rebar placed at the Land Park Underpass Widening is nonconforming to the Contract requirements and is rejected.”
Randolph’s letter tells Mountain Methods to replace the bike bridge, erected alongside a 1970s concrete railroad overpass.
The bike span never officially opened. Tracks for Old Sac excursion trains prevent cyclists from using the adjacent railroad bridge.
The city has not explained how its engineering consultants and inspectors missed “nonconforming” concrete and rebar during bridge construction.
The doomed span was supposed to connect two bike trails: the Del Rio route through Land Park along Southern Pacific’s abandoned Walnut Grove Branch Line, and the river path on the levee.
Both bike trails start at the troubled bridge and stop at Bill Conlin Youth Sports Complex on Freeport Boulevard.
Del Rio trail opened this year. The levee path has been delayed by five decades, thanks to a few property owners who don’t want bikes and pedestrians near their backyards.
Those property owners influenced City Council members and threatened lawsuits over the levee pathway.
In recent years, the city finally funded levee trail sections in Pocket. Authorities engineered the route and undertook environmental work. Construction is expected in 2025.
The link between the new “nonconforming” bike bridge and long-delayed levee trail becomes clear in 1980 city documents.
In 1980, the City Council considered buying the Southern Pacific Walnut Grove route—including the freeway overpass. Southern Pacific abandoned the line in 1977.
“In order to justify public purchase of the line there must be a valid public use,” says a Dec. 19, 1980, City Council report. “The most immediate public use of the line is for a bikeway. The Bikeway Master Plan includes an off-street bikeway on most of this line.”
The report describes both the Del Rio and river levee bike paths. It concludes, “Work is currently underway to implement the Sacramento River portion of the bikeway and the City owns title to this portion of the right of way.”
The City Council wanted to buy the rail line but worried it lacked funds—$1.8 million for 23 miles, spare change today. The city hoped the state would pay for the route.
City Council members were told state parks planned an excursion train from Old Sac to Hood. The council also identified a potential “urban mass transit rail line.” Neither happened.
Instead, state parks acquired the tracks from Old Sac to South Land Park for an excursion train. Regional Transit gained rights from the Riverside bridge to Freeport but gave the property to the city after building the Meadowview light rail line near Highway 99.
In 1980, the city feared it could lose access to Southern Pacific’s abandoned line and I-5 rail bridge.
But the council got lucky. In 1984, Southern Pacific handed the city the rail bridge over I-5 and Riverside. Today the concrete rail overpass stands proud alongside the doomed structure.
With leadership and courage, the city could have built the levee trail from the Riverside bridge to South Pocket in 1984.
Instead, the city folded. Frightened by a few NIMBY property owners.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
