Delays plague San Bernardino’s Mt. Vernon Avenue Bridge project
QMartha Uribe of Fontana recently asked when the Mt. Vernon Avenue Bridge in San Bernardino would be rebuilt and completed. The bridge was closed a couple of years ago, she said, adding, “No efforts to rebuild it have been made.”
ARebuilding efforts are indeed underway but the project has been delayed by numerous factors. Here is an update on the Mt. Vernon Avenue Bridge Project from Tim Watkins, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s chief of Legislative and Public Affairs.
First, a little background: The old Mt. Vernon Avenue Bridge opened in 1934. For safety reasons, San Bernardino, Caltrans and the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority partnered to tear it down and rebuild a new and improved bridge. They closed the old bridge in December 2020 and demolition was complete in April 2021. Reconstruction was supposed to start this year with an opening date in 2024. The new bridge will have wider lanes, a center median, wider sidewalks and new bike lanes, and serve pedestrians, bicyclists, cars and commercial vehicles. Here is the project website: https://www.gosbcta. com/project/mt-vernonviaduct/
Watkins noted that this project spans one of the largest rail yards in the region. Because the old bridge was rated as severely deficient, for safety reasons it had to be torn down as soon as possible, while the design/build team finalized reconstruction. In addition, the operators of the railyard, BNSF Railway had its own work to do to realign some rail lines to maintain operations during bridge reconstruction. “As a result, the project was staged where the reconstruction would be suspended during the BNSF operation,” Watkins said.
“The original schedule made some assumptions on indeterminate items like utilities, property acquisition and other right of way issues,” he said. “Unfortunately, those areas took a little longer than anticipated and BNSF was delayed in commencing their work until they were resolved. However, BNSF assures us that their work will be complete in 2023 and we can begin the primary reconstruction immediately thereafter.”
The city, transportation agencies and rail operators are coordinating to do what work they can concurrently to make up some lost time, he said. As Watkins pointed out, “Project delivery is not an exact science as there are multiple variables that factor into the progress made on projects.”
“While the reconstruction did not commence according to our original estimates, we are continually looking for opportunities to advance the project to completion,” he said. “We remain optimistic that we will complete the project by the end of 2024, however, production rates and other timerelated elements of the construction process may move us toward the early part of 2025.”
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