City, County and Neighborhood News

There’s big trouble with the bike and railroad bridge that crosses Interstate 5 and Riverside Boulevard near Sutterville Road. Here’s how the city tried to hide the story.

Word spread this summer over concerns with concrete that holds the new bridge together. It’s hard to keep everyone quiet about potentially inferior concrete on a bridge above an interstate.

Call them desperate, duplicitous or naïve. But authorities at City Hall figured they could bury the facts and cover up the details.

City officials stonewalled my questions about the bridge, a high-profile structure that arches over the freeway and connects the new Del Rio Trail with the Sacramento River Parkway bike path.

A new public toilet in San Francisco made news with its first flush. The story wasn’t about plumbing. It was about adventures in bureaucracy.

Thanks to a bird’s nest of bids, permits, reviews and inspections, the toilet required two years and a budget of $1.7 million.

Authorities later said the price was closer to $200,000. But the point was made. Cities fumble simple, basic projects.
Sacramento has a simple, basic project that makes San Francisco look speedy—a bike path 108 years in the making.

They’re making it worse for themselves. I’m talking about a handful of residents near the Sacramento River who want to delay the levee parkway and bike trail.

For their latest misfire in community relations, the no-trail group has quietly begun to promote the city’s new Del Rio Trail as a suitable alternative to the levee bike path.