The inability of local public leadership to construct adequate bridges across the two rivers separating much of our community from itself is a festering sore that, while perhaps benefiting the few residents who understandably do not want more traffic in their neighborhoods, causes long-term harm to those many more who want effective traffic patterns and a more cohesive community.
The once envisioned but never birthed renewal of Carmichael, and the long trek between Watt and Sunrise due to a past group of local leaders unable to build the necessary bridge across the American should not be replicated on the Sacramento.
Build the bridge, create the community.
A fourth bridge to West Sac? Not from Broadway, locals say
Drive to develop waterfront clashes with growing concerns over traffic
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Bridges, by nature, bring people together.
But a proposed new bridge over the Sacramento River – one designed to connect two cities and help bring life to the region's underachieving waterfront – is having the opposite effect.
The proposed bridge south of downtown has become a flash point as the Sacramento Area Council of Governments prepares to approve a new transportation plan for the region next month.
The bridge would stretch west from Broadway, the well-known commercial strip in Sacramento anchored by the Tower Theatre, to South River Road, which serves the growing city of West Sacramento.
Many residents in Land Park, Southside Park and other areas near Broadway fear the bridge would bring waves of unwanted traffic. They are fighting hard against it.
"We already have people racing through our streets getting in and out of downtown," said Paul Trudeau, who works for a wheelchair dealer and heads the Southside Park Neighborhood Association. "This will just make things worse."
To regional transportation planners, the bridge is critical for relieving congestion on Interstate 5, the Capital City Freeway and Highway 50 in the downtown area.
It also could have a splashier role to play in the emerging waterfront scene.
According to urban planners, architects and riverfront developers, the additional crossing would draw more people to the water's edge, where new neighborhoods with shops, parks, restaurants, piers and modern housing are being planned on both sides of the river.
Sacramento has three bridge crossings over the Sacramento River in the downtown core (the I Street, Tower and Pioneer bridges). That is far fewer than other cities with successful waterfronts, such as Portland, Ore., and Pittsburgh.
"For places to be revitalized, they have to be easy to get to," said Jim Stickley, a principal with Wallace Roberts & Todd, a national design and planning firm that is working on the Sacramento waterfront in the Docks area north of Broadway. "The idea is to get synergy going."
