MALIBU : Bidding Set for New Malibu Lagoon Bridge

A multimillion-dollar project to replace the bridge over the Malibu Lagoon on Pacific Coast Highway is scheduled to begin next month, limiting traffic to one lane in each direction for about 14 weeks.

Bidding on the project opens Feb. 17, said Bill Reagan, project manager for Caltrans District 7. The project, originally estimated at $8.8 million but expected to cost far more because of a planned 24-hour-a-day work schedule, will be awarded to a company that same day, Reagan said. The bridge replacement, which will increase the width of the structure by roughly 20 feet and will bore supporting pilings into bedrock, has two phases.

The first part of the construction will increase the bridge to two-thirds of its total width and is expected to take 4 1/2 months. All four lanes of traffic will reopen when the work is completed sometime in June. The second stage will take another 4 1/2 months.

Although the new bridge will be wider than the existing one, traffic lanes will remain the same width. But the median width will be increased from four feet to 12 feet and the shoulders from two feet to eight. The sidewalks and protective barrier guards will be increased by a foot each.

The existing Malibu Lagoon Bridge, the structure’s official name, was scheduled for replacement this year. Built in 1925, the bridge pilings were driven deep into the soil, with a slab of concrete acting as the stabilizing base.

Reagan said that bridge designers in the 1920s did not take into account how the structure could be undermined by intense storms, which drive rain through the waterway beneath the structure.

The bridge was closed after the Jan. 4 storm. Only one lane has been open in each direction, for residents’ use only.