MORAGA — A permanent two-way bridge connecting Moraga and Canyon has opened — a decade after the state said the old span needed to be replaced.
Canyon Road Bridge was formally opened at a ribbon-cutting ceremony last month. The bridge is over the west branch of San Leandro Creek, also known as Moraga Creek.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for the town staff, but also for the community,” said Sharon Chan, the bridge’s project manager, in an interview. “They’ve been very, very cooperative, especially people who live right by the construction site, so it was really, really good to see a lot of them out there [at the opening].” About 150 people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The opening means that once again, bicyclists and pedestrians are able to use the bridge south of Constance Place in Moraga to get to nearby Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail, which is maintained by the East Bay Regional Park District. Students also use the crossing to get to Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School, next to the bridge.
Construction of the new bridge began in 2020. Bridgeway Civil Constructors of Vacaville was hired to build the bridge, which cost $7.46 million.
Years earlier, Caltrans declared the original bridge, built in 1936, structurally deficient after finding that several of its railings and posts were broken and rotted.
In April 2017, the old bridge was closed after heavy rains downpours caused land underneath it to become unstable, which affected bridge supports, making it unsafe.
A $3 million temporary one-lane span opened in November 2017, linking the communities of Canyon and Moraga for the first time in months. Moraga paid for the temporary bridge with federal disaster relief funds.
Then in February 2019, the bridge’s pedestrian pathway was declared unsafe and was closed after more heavy downpours.
To help protect the bridge from future landslides, Moraga and the East Bay Municipal Utility District reached an agreement in 2020 to build a retaining wall to help protect the bridge from future landslides. EBMUD is involved because it owns the land around the creek.
Work on the retaining wall started last summer. The $6.5 million project will be paid for in part by $3 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the rest coming from EBMUD.
Plans to replace the bridge started years ago. In 2013, Moraga was awarded money through the Federal Highway Bridge Program to start planning for a new bridge. After a few years of project studies and designs, work was expected to begin. However, because of a backlog of work, Caltrans postponed starting construction of the permanent two-lane bridge until 2020.
During construction, temporary traffic signals allowed vehicles to cross the bridge one direction at a time.
The new bridge is 120 feet long and 48 feet wide with two 12-foot travel lanes and two 8-foot wide shoulders on each side, which can serve as bike lanes. There is also a 5-foot- wide sidewalk on the west side for pedestrians.
“It’s a testament to what a small town can do and what a small town government can accomplish,” Moraga Mayor Renata Sos said in an interview. “And it’s a testament to civic pride that the community rallied around this bridge.”
— Former staff writer Jon Kawamoto contributed to this report.
