Politics & Government

Letter to the Editor: Caltrans Boondoggle

The Sepulveda Boulevard bridge widening project has easier solutions than what officials propose at a far-less-expensive cost, writes resident.

Dear Editor:

The bridge on Sepulveda just south of Rosecrans is scheduled to be replaced and widened starting the beginning of 2014. This $72-million project will take at least a year and cause gridlock to much of the South Bay during that period. Sepulveda will be gridlocked. People fleeing the gridlock on Sepulveda will make Aviation Boulevard much worse. Cars routing around the work will gridlock Rosecrans, Marine and Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

“The bridge is a bottleneck” is the claimed reason for the project. The width of Sepulveda over the bridge is 80 feet. Sepulveda is the same width 800' south at 30th Street and 76' wide 750 feet further south just south of Marine. Mostly Sepulveda, which becomes PCH, narrows going south of Marine. The bridge is not a bottleneck!

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The latest bugaboo to inflame our imagination is tales about earthquakes affecting the bridge.

The bridge was built in 1934. Santa Fe had to dig a trench for their trains which no longer run.

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Why can we not just fill in under the bridge and to its east for about 30 feet and make it much like it was in 1933? This will convert the bridge to a road over solid ground with level surface to the east for an additional lane if anyone really wants it. This can all be done for a very small fraction of the current projected cost and without any of the traffic gridlock. 

Write Manhattan Beach City Council to stop this highly disruptive, very expensive project before it is too late and you are mired in traffic.

Patrick McBride, Manhattan Beach


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