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Replacing the 88-year-old bridge on Willow Glen Way should have been a simple engineering job for Santa Clara Valley Water District project manager Dennis Cheong. But the redesigning process has involved neighbors, engineers, an architect, an arborist, wildlife conservation groups, utilities companies and the San Jose departments of transportation and public works.
Although the residents attending the water district's May 26 public meeting update on the project are pleased with the aesthetic design, they still had questions about construction and the future flood-control project on the Guadalupe River.
"It's going to be good once it's done," said Susan Kusters, who lives on Guadalupe Avenue and attended a bridge-design workshop in December 2003.
Thorsten Graeve, who lives on Northern Road, is also pleased, saying that the bridge's proposed gateway pillars are attractive.
"I've seen a lot of improvements in the area, and it's really coming together," Graeve said.
At the Oct. 30, 2003, public meeting, neighbors voiced concerns that the new bridge, which will be wider and longer, would look like a Caltrans highway overpass.
But the Craftsman-style pillars being placed at the beginning and end of the bridge were designed to capture the "rustic, woodsy feeling" of the tree-canopied creek area, said architect Yui Hay Lee.
"There are so many bridges you cross without knowing, we want to put a marker on both sides so you feel you arrive somewhere," Lee said. He added that the design also incorporates a mid-span alcove for pedestrians to stop and look at the river.
The two sycamore trees on Willow Glen Way, which abutted the existing bridge, had to be removed because of the new bridge's width requirements. But conforming to the width requirements enabled the water district to receive a $1.8 million Caltrans grant, Cheong said. The water district plans to replace them with a drought-resistant, tall-and-fasting growing tree, the Japanese zelkova.
Not everyone at the meeting was concerned about aesthetics.
Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Group Chairman Roger Castillo expressed concern that the dimensions of the new bridge would affect salmon spawning, which he said is already an issue at rebuilt Foxworthy bridge. He is also worried about the water flow through the channel.
Cheong said the project's schedule has been delayed until 2005 so the water district can work closer with the community on the bridge design and coordinate the relocation of utilities, which include cable, SBC and Comcast. These services will be relocated between November 2004 and January 2005, but no disruption of service is anticipated, Cheong said.
Eric and Beth Basham, who live on Mackey Avenue, are concerned that during the construction they will be cut off from Willow Glen unless they go east toward Almaden Avenue and take Malone Road or Alma Avenue to re-enter Willow Glen.
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