City to replace Lost Hills bridge

NARROW PATH- A truck crosses the bridge over the 101 Freeway at Lost Hills Road in Calabasas. A $20-million proposal calls for a new, wider bridge, but the work probably won't begin until 2011. The Calabasas City Council has approved a $20million agreement with Caltrans to replace the bridge on Lost Hills Road over the 101 Freeway.

The current bridge has only two lanes and is 4 feet lower than a standard bridge. The new bridge is slated to be five lanes wide, but because it provides the only access to parts of the community, the city cannot demolish the bridge before building the new one.

"In phase one, we will keep the existing bridge and build three lanes of the new bridge next to it," said Alex Farassati, environmental service manager for Calabasas. "When that's completed we will demo the old bridge and add two more lanes."

Farassati said the city needs about $17 million for the work and has hired lobbyists in Washington, D.C., in the hope of securing federal money. The other $3 million will come from the local budget and perhaps from the county or the California Department of Transportation as well.

The 101 Freeway and the area from the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles to the 23 Freeway in Thousand Oaks is being included in the U.S.-101 Freeway Corridor Improvement Study. In April 2003, the study committee recommended as a longrange concept the addition of one mixed-flow lane in the four-lane segment of the freeway between Moorpark Road and Topanga Canyon Boulevard and two high-occupancy vehicle lanes in each direction.

The Southern California Association of Governments is working to refine the recommendations in one draft, proposing a longrange concept that would add a high-occupancy toll lane in each direction and light-rail transit in the median.

But the proposals require the improvement of the Lost Hills bridge. Members of the city's staff are working to finalize the agreement with Caltrans, outlining each jurisdiction's responsibility.

In addition to the bridge, a "partial cloverleaf" design will be added to one of the onramps to the new bridge. Drivers headed north on Lost Hills Road toward the landfill will be able to make a right turn and proceed in a circle to the freeway. Other onramps will have to be realigned because the new bridge will be longer and higher.

"There is a lot of traffic going to the landfill," Farassati said. "From about 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. there are many trucks going back and forth. From Malibu, unincorporated L.A. County, Agoura, Westlake- they all go over that bridge."

The city is negotiating with the county to pick up the design phase as opposed to going to a private company. County officials estimate they'll need about a year and a half to prepare the plans and environmental documents, and by the end of 2010 the project will be ready to go out to bid. If funding is available, construction would begin in early 2011.