Yuba City City Council Approves Final Phase of Bridge Street Widening Project
Yuba City, CA – March 2, 2022 – During last night’s meeting Yuba City City Council unanimously approved contracts to facilitate widening the final section of Bridge Street from Gray Avenue to Cooper Avenue, creating a continuous four-lane road from Highway 99 east to the 5th Street Bridge. Weather permitting, project construction will begin this spring and run through January 2023.
“Improving Yuba City’s infrastructure is one of our Council’s strategic goals,” said Yuba City Mayor, Dave Shaw. “Widening our entire Bridge Street corridor has been a project 20 plus years in the making. Now that the actual bridge is four lanes, this final phase of widening Bridge Street will ease one of the worst traffic bottle-necks in town.
The total project is estimated at $10.2 million, including a construction contract of just over $8 million awarded to Knife River Construction of Chico; $1.2 million for construction contingencies; just over $814,000 to Knight CM Group of Gold River for construction management; and approximately $168,000 for labor compliance services, design services and City administration costs.
A total of four construction bids were received, ranging from the accepted bid of $8,054,003, to a high bid of $8,900,045. The lowest responsible, responsive bidder, Knife River Construction, also completed an earlier phase of the project, widening Bridge Street from Cooper Avenue to Plumas Street.
In 2020, Yuba City applied for, and was eventually awarded, $2.8 million for the project from the California Transportation Commission. For the remaining funds, $2.63 million will come from the City’s existing Development Impact Fee account; $1.73 million from state Transportation Development Act funds; $2.28 million from gas tax funds accrued in the City’s Road Maintenance and Rehab Account; and $775,000 from the City’s sewer and water infrastructure fund accounts.
In addition to widening this final stretch of Bridge Street to four-lanes of traffic from Gray Avenue to Cooper Avenue, the project includes a bicycle pathway, raised landscape median, new synchronized traffic signals, and dedicated ADA-accessible sidewalks and crosswalks for pedestrians.
All additional properties needed for the project were acquired through voluntary property sales. No eminent domain was used. To maintain a neighborhood feel to the road, ample room for on-street parking is included on both sides of Bridge street; and to mitigate noise for residents on the north side of Bridge Street, the project will include a block wall to replace the existing wood fences.
Yuba City Deputy Public Works Director, Kevin Bradford, outlined the bid process, fiscal impact, community impact and timeline. With Marysville recently starting their own 5th Street project, Bradford said there should only be a few months of overlap, as Marysville’s project is expected to be completed in July. Bradford also noted Yuba City’s contractor will maintain traffic flow on Bridge Street throughout the project, as they did with the previous section from Cooper to Plumas.
“Not only does Bridge Street have one of the worst bottlenecks and worst road conditions in town, it has water and sewer infrastructure in need of replacement. This is a much-needed project from so many angles,” said Bradford. “Council members and city staff have worked extensively behind the scenes for many years to obtain the grant funding and coordinate the logistics on this massive project. It’s going to be a tremendous benefit to Yuba City when finished.”
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