See-Through Railing No Solution for Noyo Monster Bridge
By Vince Taylor
[Published
in the Fort Bragg Advocate/Mendocino
Beacon, October 15, 1998]
Thank you, Karen
Tatman, Caltrans Project Manager, for holding the recent public workshop
on the proposed Noyo Bridge. You found out that sixty people cared enough
about preserving our precious coast to come and complain about your
monstrous bridge design. You told me in a phone conversation on October
8, that you were going to respond to these complaints, that you were
changing the bridge design to incorporate a see-through railing. You said
that this would satisfy all of the complaints received and that you were
now ready to go forward with the bridge without further citizen input.
Karen, you are
completely missing the point. We complained because we want a bridge
design that will do as much as possible to preserve or even enhance the
experience of driving above the Noyo River and Harbor. You propose
constructing a monster bridge over Noyo Harbor,
a bridge completely out of scale with every other bridge on Highway 1
north of San Francisco. You have completely misled the public by calling
it a “four-lane” bridge. In reality, if you get your way, you are going
to build a seven lane bridge – five 12 foot
traffic lanes, including a 12 foot median lane, plus two 13 foot
emergency-bicycle-pedestrian lanes. This is almost THREE TIMES as big as
the present bridge. This bridge is so huge, I couldn’t even imagine it,
until you told me that it will be as wide as the entire highway at Redwood
and Main Street, including the parking lanes, plus five feet of the
sidewalks on both sides! This is a bridge for the Bay area, not the
Mendocino North Coast.
If you are really
wanting to listen to the people, you will scrap your monster bridge and
start again. There is no way that you can preserve our values with this
monster. As Joe Ribeiro pointed out in a recent letter published in the
Fort Bragg Advocate News (October 8, 1998), “even if the barrier along the
bridge walkway was designed so you could see through it, the only way you
would be able to see the ocean or Noyo Harbor while driving across the
bridge is if you drove on the eight foot shoulder.”
When you presented
the first Public Workshop on the bridge in November, [1997]
you got only one complaint about the bridge. This last time, you
got sixty complaints. Why? Because your presentations the first time
didn’t make it clear to people how much their views were going to suffer.
When people were alerted, they let you know in large numbers. You tell me
you haven’t gotten any complaints about the scale of the bridge? Why?
Because your presentations haven’t successfully communicated the size of
the bridge, its visual and noise impact on the surrounding areas, its
effect on pedestrian access to the bridge (where will sightseers park?),
and its destruction of coastal views.
To do the job
right, you need to construct a three dimensional model that shows the
bridge and the buildings and roadsides on both sides of the bridge. You
need to create numerous simulated east and west views while driving in
both directions. You need to bring these back to Fort Bragg and hold
another public workshop. Then, you will know how people really feel about
your bridge design when they can truly visualize it.
Coastal
residents, if you agree with what I’ve written above, you need to take
action immediately! Please write or call to Karen Tatman, Caltrans
Project Manager, PO Box 911, Marysville, CA 95901, tel: (530) 741-5331,
fax (530) 741-4390, with copies to Sen. Mike Thompson, State Capitol, Room
3056, Sacramento, CA 95814, tel: (707) 962-0933, fax: (707) 962-0934, and
to Representative Virginia Strom-Martin, PO Box 942849, Sacramento, CA
94249-0001, tel: (707) 463-5770, fax: (707) 463-5773. Thanks for your
help!