Bicycle And Pedestrian Bridge Construction Delayed

Plans to build a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge at Sacramento City College will be delayed for a couple of months.  The project has been re-designed and will be re-bid, if the City Council approves at Tuesday's meeting.

Construction of the bridge was put out to bid earlier this year. The lowest bid was more than $7 million.  But, the City of Sacramento has only allocated $6 million.

Nicholas Theocharides is with the Department of Public Works.  He says some of the aesthetic features and a staircase have been eliminated from the proposal. A council vote is required to re-bid the project.

"One major change is removing the staircase on the east side of the structure," he says. "We found that wasn't absolutely necessary.  We reduced some of the aesthetic features. We took some of the brick facing that we had on those columns. The columns had architectural curves that were difficult to form."

Theocharides says the bridge is needed to connect Sacramento City College and the new Curtis Park Village development.

"Right now without this bridge, access is circuitous and you have to take roadways and move around the area to get to the light rail station as opposed to just an easy walk across the tracks," he says.

When completed, the arch suspension bridge will go over railroad and light tracks.

Theocharides says if the project is re-bid, construction could begin in a couple of months.  The bridge would be built off site, trucked in, and then moved into place using two cranes. Some foundation work has already been completed.

Construction was supposed to begin this month, but now won't likely begin until later this summer.