Bridge-Widening Plan Is Back

If at first you don’t succeed--even in bridge-building--try, try again.

For more than 15 years, Caltrans has tried to replace two bridges that link Ventura and Santa Barbara counties along California 150. Transportation planners maintain that the narrow spans, built over Rincon Creek in 1927, contribute to an accident rate that is more than double the statewide average for rural two-lane highways.

But plans have been continually nixed by county supervisors and the California Coastal Commission. Officials have said that doubling the width of the bridges would harm wildlife in the area and encourage speeding along the scenic winding road.

Now, still facing opposition from environmentalists and landowners near the bridges, the California Department of Transportation is working to put its plans through the permit process a third time.

Seeking ways to create a workable alternative, Caltrans officials will meet March 25 with those who have opposed the $2-million plan. But if new plans still include replacing the old bridges, the Sierra Club will again fight Caltrans, said Mark Massara, director of the environmental group’s coastal program.

“That’s a winding country lane that is used primarily by ranching and agricultural interests and tourists and people recreating. That’s the way that roadway should stay. There’s no reason to make that into a freeway,” Massara said.

“Caltrans has invested so much money in this thing that they will not let it die,” he added.

Landowners like rancher Duncan Abbott are also tired of dealing with the project and with Caltrans.

“They don’t go away,” said Abbott, whose property abuts Rincon Creek. He supports trying to make the bridges safer, but does not see why Caltrans must move one of the bridges closer to his avocado ranch, which Caltrans has proposed.

“If they could leave the bridge where it is and fix it, that would be wonderful,” he said.

The Sierra Club’s environmental concerns over the area’s wildlife and old-growth trees don’t particularly worry Abbott.

“I appreciate what they’re doing,” he said, “but their causes are not the same as mine.”

Caltrans planner Chuck Cesena said that improving safety along the bridges and California 150 is the department’s primary goal. Cheaper alternatives, such as adding caution lights and signs near the existing bridges, would not solve the problem.

“We have quite a few warning signs at the problem locations right now,” Cesena said. “They did reduce the accident rate, but we still have a rate that is twice the statewide average.”

Signage, he added, “will get you so far, and then people will ignore the signs after time.”

Cesena also dismisses claims that replacing the bridges will increase traffic in the mostly rural area in the hills north of La Conchita.

“If people need to travel from Ojai to Carpinteria and they want to take 150, they’re going to take 150 whether these bridges are replaced or not,” he said.

The bridges straddle the line between Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. For Caltrans to build the bridges, the planning commissions and boards of supervisors of both counties would have to sign off on the proposals. Their decisions could be appealed to the Coastal Commission.

Cesena said he extended invitations to the March 25 meeting, which will be held in a field at Abbott’s ranch, to property owners, officials and the Sierra Club because those groups have been involved in the project all along.

Although he invites anyone else to attend, Cesena fears that environmentalists are publicizing the meeting to turn it into a forum for protesting the project.

“I want people there if they come with an open mind and look forward to solving a problem,” Cesena said. “If the intent is to disrupt the meeting, I don’t see anything productive in that. . . . That opportunity will come when the project is presented to the elected officials in both counties.”