The City's final decision on Half Moon Bay's Main Street Bridge is looming. Half Moon Bay's historic bridge is one of the oldest remaining structures on the Coastside at 113 years old. Should we fix it or replace it?
The Main Street Bridge is on the agenda at Tuesday's City Council meeting, and the City is pushing for an $8 million replacement for the bridge. Based on the evaluation of nine construction options measured against ranked criteria established by the Council at its April 9, 2013 special meeting, city staff recommends that the Council select Option 3 (two-stage replacement), and direct staff to proceed with design, environmental review and permitting processes.
If approved, the Main Street bridge project would take the dry seasons of two years to fully complete with at least one lane of traffic open at most times. While Option 3 is not the least impactful in terms of construction time, staging or noise impacts, nor is it the least expensive, based on an evaluation by the City’s project team, Option 3 received the highest overall score and was determined to have fully met the Council’s criteria with respect to protecting public health and safety, maintaining at least one lane of traffic at most times, and minimizing environmental impacts/regulatory hurdles.
Some local merchants and residents, however want to see the bridge restored instead. A new flyer produced by "Save Your Bridge" supporters explains why they want to see the bridge fixed instead of replaced and can be found posted around town. Have you seen the flyer yet?
On the flyer it states that it's better to fix the bridge because replacing it will:
• cost taxpayers more than five times as much money
• take two years of heavy construction on Main Street
• disturb the creek bed and environment over a bigger space and for much more time
• take away Half Moon Bay's historic, quaint bridge
They are hoping citizens turn out at the City Council meeting to urge leaders to restore the bridge instead of completely replacing it.
The Half Moon Bay City Council meeting is at 7 p.m. at the Ted Adcock Center, 535 Kelly Ave., Half Moon Bay.
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