Safety First

SAFETY FIRST… Squid was oozing around Seaside recently and saw recent improvements to San Pablo Avenue – new medians, new double-yellow lines, new pavement – and thought the two-lane road looked spiffier and safer. But the pedestrian-only bridge between Lincoln-Cunningham Park and Manzanita-Stuart Park remains dangling there in the sky, closed for three years due to unsafe infrastructure.

The budget to demolish and rebuild the bridge ballooned to $1.5 million, and the City was counting on U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, to bring home $850,000 worth of federal bacon in the latest federal appropriations package to make that possible. On April 3, Panetta did, and local officials gathered around to praise the funding for the bridge.

“This investment represents more than infrastructure,” said Monterey Peninsula Unified School District board member Bettye Lusk, noting the Safe Routes to School alignment. “It’s an investment in our students and families.”

According to Jessica Allen, head of school at International School of Monterey, “Its restoration represents not just safety but also belonging, connection, and opportunity to be with people and places in our local community.”

That’s a lot of hype (and money) for a bridge that Squid never missed anyway. Squid thought it would have been fun to paint a bright crosswalk between the two parks, and with just a couple of cans of paint and a two-figure budget, Squid would have lent a tentacle to help.

BRIDGE TOO FAR… Speaking of bridges, Squid oozed Squid’s way into the County of Monterey Health, Housing, Homelessness and Human Services Committee meeting on March 26 and caught a plea by a weary supervisor over one of the world’s most famous of all bridges, Bixby Bridge in Big Sur.

A staff presentation on some mundane government decision was about to begin and up on the screen flashed an image of Bixby Bridge – Squid can’t even count how many county presentations, plus other local entities, use the image ad nauseam in slide presentations – when Supervisor Kate Daniels, whose district includes the Instagram-famous landmark, felt compelled to speak.

“I cannot let it pass that in District 5 I struggle very much with the Bixby Bridge and all of the visitation on the Bixby Bridge,” she said, sounding exasperated. Couldn’t they find another image? “I’m sorry to be the one to say that, but I’m tortured.”

Squid sympathizes with Daniels’ lament. As beautiful as it is, the image of the bridge is overused and needs to be retired. Especially in a meeting focused on helping people who live under too many bridges in Monterey County – it’s the one bridge that no one can live under but way too many visit.