Federal Money Goes to Bridge Repairs Here in Calaveras County

By Sara Lunsford, Calaveras Enterprise, November 4, 2011

Three more bridges in Calaveras County will be retrofitted in the next few years, thanks to a federal program aimed at making aging public bridges across the country safer.

The Federal Highway Administration instituted the Highway Bridge Program which is administered through each of the states to rehabilitate, restore and perform preventative maintenance on aging bridges.

The program allocates about  $240 million annually to this bridge rehabilitation program.

According to the federal government’s National Bridge Inventory, there are 95 bridges in Calaveras County.  To qualify for funding, bridges must be on this national inventory list, as well as meet other stipulated requirements, such as being a public bridge.

Thirteen of those bridges have already been allocated funding for improvements, and with the three recent additions, 16 bridges in the county will benefit from this program.
“It helps our backlog in road maintenance,” said Tom Garcia, Calaveras County director of public works.

The federal program doesn’t require a local match, just that the Public Works Department do the legwork to get the bridge work done.

This work is already well underway.  The department is working on the 13 other bridges that were previously funded under this program.

Projects go through the same bid process of any other government projects and require both National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act review.
At an average cost of $5 million to $7 million per bridge, with some costing more and others less depending on the amount of work that needs to be done, the county will be receiving close to $100 million to complete the work on the aging bridges in the county.

Along with the 16 bridges that have now been approved for retrofit work, Garcia said there were three more in the pipeline for approval.

Bridges around the county set to be rehabilitated include structures on Whiskey Slide Road, Monge Ranch Road, Calaveritas Road, Dogtown Road, San Domingo Road, Rolleri Bypass Road and Schadd Road.

New bridges will be built at low-water crossings in the county, like those on Hogan Dam Road and Single Tree Road.Stagecoach Road.

“We anticipate some of the easier ones we’ll be getting to constructing in two to three years,” said Garcia.