California Coast & Ocean

In the summer of 1998, Caltrans released plans to replace the two-lane steel girder bridge that crossed the Noyo River from the tops of the 110-foot-high bluffs above the Noyo Harbor entrance, at the southern end of Fort Bragg. This bridge, built in 1948 on Highway 1, had been identified as unsafe during a seismic safety review of highway bridges after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was also a bottleneck for traffic. The agency proposed a concrete box-girder bridge, which is a typical freeway bridge. Although described as a "four-lane bridge," it was 87 feet wide--wider than the Golden Gate Bridge. It would almost completely fill its right of way and come within 10 feet of a restaurant and motel on its seaward side.

The narrow old bridge, with its open railings, had provided spectacular views of Noyo Harbor, the harbor entrance, and adjacent coastal bluffs. The proposed new bridge was to have a solid concrete barrier that would cut off most of these views.

The bridge design outraged local citizens, many of whom were already irate that a large and controversial

hotel under construction near the north end of the bridge was blocking some of the same views. The citizens who objected wanted Caltrans to come up with an architecturally more distinctive design, a narrower bridge, and railings that preserved the view. Others in the community, however, wanted a new four-lane bridge and the economic benefits of the $20 million project, never mind the views and aesthetics.

The ensuing battle over the bridge and railing design went on for two and a half years. It involved Caltrans, the Fort Bragg Planning Commission and City Council, the Coastal Commission, the California Transportation Commission, and numerous citizens of Mendocino County. (An extensive chronology with linked documentation is at www.bridgerailings.org.)

The Turning Point
Through the first half of 2000, I seemed to be making no progress. Then came the break. In July 2000, Caltrans announced the second delay in construction of the Noyo Bridge. It would not start before June 2001. This was two years later than the start date that Caltrans had told the Coastal Commission was essential for public safety, thereby persuading a reluctant Commission to approve the permit.

This announcement came just before the Commission's July 2000 meeting. With the help of the Sierra Club's Roanne Withers, who had filed the initial appeal, we briefed Commission staff on the delay so that they would be prepared to inform the commissioners. I prepared a one-page list of actions the Commission might take to pressure Caltrans to provide a visually transparent railing and, before the meeting, presented it to Commission chair Sara Wan and railing subcommittee members.
At the meeting commissioners expressed dismay at the delay, after Caltrans had used the urgency argument to shut off Commission consideration of alternatives that could better preserve the scenic values of the Noyo River and harbor.

After the staff briefing on the delay, I gave the Commission a necessarily brief update on my findings with respect to the Wyoming Rail and explained the list of possible Commission actions. Among these were a request that the Commission write to the Wyoming Department of Transportation and ask it to confirm that its railing met engineering standards and to Caltrans asking it to use one of the newly approved, metal scenic railings on the Noyo Bridge if it could be fit into the bridge's construction schedule.

The Commission was extremely receptive to my requests and directed staff to follow through on these and the others. This meeting was the turning point in the struggle for an acceptable railing, and I went from being considered an outsider to being treated as a respected, desirable source of independent information. The Commission was now taking my input seriously.

I spent another nine months of frustrating, sometimes enraging, confrontations with Caltrans engineers. Finally, on March 6, 2001, I wrote to Caltrans Director Jeff Morales, asking him to conduct a review of his engineering department's continuing refusal to accept the Wyoming rail.

A Happy Ending
Whether or not my letter had any effect I will never know for certain, because Caltrans's response on April 10, 2001, rebutted some contentions in my letter and did not directly address acceptance of the Wyoming rail. Coincidentally or not, however, on exactly this same date, Rick Land, Caltrans's bridge design supervisor, wrote to inform the Commission that the agency was approving a newly designed steel rail, the ST-10. The ST-10 was a sufficiently close cousin to the Wyoming rail to provide the Commission with a fully acceptable scenic railing. It took yet another construction delay to ensure that this railing was used on the new Noyo Bridge in the two-rail system I'd been proposing since 1998, but the wheels that led to this outcome were set in motion at the July 2000 Commission meeting.

The positive outcome grew out of a confluence of events, ongoing efforts, and preparation. The key factor was the major delay in construction of the Noyo Bridge, which provided an opening to gather information and present it to the Commission. Also, by this time I was familiar to the Commission and staff, and known at least by some to be a serious and reliable witness. Perseverance and patience, and being ready to exploit the right opportunity, seem to be keys to success in moving public policy. Of course, without the Coastal Commission, none of this would have been possible.

The new bridge spanning the Noyo River was completed in August 2005. Everyone was delighted with the sweeping vistas from the bridge and with the elegance of the railings. Caltrans held a big, self-congratulatory private ceremony, with a guest list of community leaders and politicians. I was not invited, but I heard that several local speakers lauded my contribution. At the public opening ceremony, the mayor of Fort Bragg gave me the major credit for the scenic qualities of the bridge.

Later, in a complete reversal of its earlier attitude toward me, the Fort Bragg City Council issued a proclamation commending me for protecting the scenic views from new bridges along California's coast.

There is a final lesson here: Persevering until success is achieved will garner approval and respect from many of those who opposed you at the height of the conflict. Don't give up.

I hope my story of the struggle over the Highway 1 Noyo River Bridge will encourage more people to defend coastal community values against attempts to build large projects that disregard those values. It shows that even a single citizen is not powerless.

Vince Taylor, who has a degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, lives in the village of Mendocino. He spent 20 years doing policy analysis on a variety of projects for the Rand Corporation and other organizations, and for ten years headed a software business he had founded. Since the mid-1990s he has worked on local public service projects, including the Noyo Bridge and Jackson State Forest (see www.jacksonforest.org).

This article is greatly abridged. For the complete story see the print edition of Coast & Ocean.