Public can weigh in on Seventh Street Bridge design
Modesto-area residents will get a chance next week to suggest what the new Seventh Street Bridge on the Tuolumne River should look like.
The planners are being extra careful about the aesthetics because the project will replace a 1916 bridge that, while no longer good at handling traffic, is a handsome work of architecture. And that includes the concrete lion statues on each side.
“The current bridge, which has been referred to as the Lion Bridge for many years, has been an icon in the community,” Judith Buethe, public outreach coordinator for the project, said Tuesday.
The evening meeting Jan. 14 will include a presentation on bridge aesthetics and a chance for the public to ask questions and make suggestions.
The city and Stanislaus County are partners on the project, expected to cost about $40 million. Construction could start in 2018 and is expected to take about two years.
The new bridge will be four lanes – twice as many as the old one – and will have better connections with downtown Modesto on the north side and Crows Landing Road on the south. It also will improve bicycle and pedestrian access and the management of high river flows.
Local officials expect 88 percent of the funding to come from the federal government; the city and county each would pay 6 percent.
The old bridge has a 4-ton limit on trucks. Some of the concrete has cracked and crumbled, and some of the steel has rusted.
A pair of lions rests at each end. Their origin was the topic of a column that appeared in The Bee last year by local historian Colleen Stanley Bare. She wrote that bridge worker George Harding suggested the statues, which were cast in San Francisco by an Italian craftsman.
Buethe said people have suggested that the lions be preserved somewhere, such as a park, when the new bridge is finished.
“Those lions would not be destroyed,” she said. “They would be part of the community.”
Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at jholland@modbee.com or (209) 578-2385.
HOW TO TAKE PART
▪ The meeting on the aesthetics of the Seventh Street Bridge replacement will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 14 in the basement of the city-county building at Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St., Modesto. For more information, call (209) 464-4350, ext. 101, or email hotline@buethecommunications.com.
▪ Comments also can be emailed to leamond@stancounty.org or mailed to David Leamon, Department of Public Works, Stanislaus County, 1010 St., Suite 4202, Modesto 95354.
▪ The project website is www.7thstreetbridge.org.
This story was originally published January 6, 2015 at 8:50 PM with the headline "Public can weigh in on Seventh Street Bridge design."