Repairs coming to area around Big Sur’s new Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge on Hwy. 1
The area around the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge on Highway 1 in Big Sur is getting a makeover, courtesy of a $3.1 million investment approved Friday by the California Transportation Commission.
The fixes don’t involve the 310-foot-long steel bridge itself, which was totally replaced in 2017. The innovative new bridge filled the Highway 1 gap left when the 49-year-old concrete bridge’s foundation was undermined and weakened by harsh winter storms that produced runoff-triggered landslides and erosion.
This new project, according to a Caltrans news release, will construct a retaining wall to stabilize the area’s slope, widen the shoulder, repair the pavement, improve drainage and install erosion control. Those tasks will help to protect the bridge area and upgrade elements around and near it.
It’s part of a $495 million package of projects to fix and improve transportation infrastructure throughout California. Senate Bill 1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, accounts for more than two-thirds of the cost, $328 million.
“This substantial investment will help improve transportation for all Californians now and in the future,” Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin said in the news release, including “moving toward a more climate-friendly, safe, and equitable state transportation system.”
The new bridge built in 2017
Area residents, engineers and bridge wonks still talk with wonder about the new Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge and how it was created about 45 miles north of the San Luis Obispo/Monterey county line.
The $24 million, fast-tracked project used a complex, state-of-the-art procedure. It involved building the replacement bridge nearby and then literally and very slowly rolling it onto a new superstructure that would support it over the canyon that’s filled with redwoods and other species.
The bridge-building project — which experts estimated would normally have taken six to eight years to complete had construction been done the “old” way — was finished in a quick eight months.
