Bridge changing Willow Glen Trestle opens

At lengthy last, a modest steel bridge tucked away in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood has lastly opened to the public, delivering a long-sought trail link for bikers and pedestrians on the west facet of the metropolis.

It just took San Jose officials extra than fifty percent of a 10 years extended than prepared and cost the metropolis about $860,000 additional than originally expected.

The steel structure could not glance like substantially to those people unfamiliar with the drawn-out saga of San Jose’s Willow Glen Trestle, but its completion marks the end of a seven-calendar year fight involving the town and preservationists in which courts and historians debated the merits of razing the now-demolished 99-yr-previous trestle — a picket railroad relic that went above the Los Gatos Creek just east of Lincoln Avenue. All the even though, the prefabricated metal bridge experienced been accumulating dust in storage.

The newly accomplished bridge, which formally opened late Tuesday, will serve as a relationship concerning the northern stop of the A few Creeks Path, which at this time serves as a purely natural trail produced of compacted dust, and the paved Los Gatos Creek Path.

“It’s an thrilling time,” explained Monthly bill Rankin, president of Help you save our Trails and the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association. “This new phase is an vital trail connection not just for the metropolis, but for the full location.”

Afterwards this month, the town parks department hopes to acquire the acceptance of the city council to commit $1.1 million on paving the .9-mile A few Creeks Trail with asphalt and lining the 12-foot pathway with trees, seating locations and interpretive internet sites.

Once accomplished, the Three Creeks Trail is envisioned as an integral phase in a seamless path process spanning a lot more than 100 miles alongside 3 creeks and connecting western and eastern San Jose via the Los Gatos Creek Trail, Guadalupe River Path and Coyote Creek Trail. Whilst many other connections need to be labored out before that desire is realized, the opening of the new bridge in Willow Glen is a good commence, advocates say.

“Each trail relationship that is produced sales opportunities to entry to extra city open up space that is so significant at all periods but even far more so in these periods of COVID, not only for exercising but for the psychological well being chance of receiving outside for some fresh new air in our urban environment,” Rankin claimed.

The Willow Glen Trestle, which was torn down before this slide and dumped, was designed in 1921 to have trains for the Union Pacific Railroad. In 2011, area government officials brokered a multimillion-dollar deal to order the right of way from Union Pacific in an effort and hard work to increase the city’s Three Creek Path and connect it to the Los Gatos Creek Path.

Some community users and preservationists hoped the city would restore the bridge, citing its historic ties to the city’s agricultural past, and recondition it to a point in which it could serve as the link between the two trails. But in 2014, the metropolis council voted to demolish the trestle and swap it with a metal bridge, arguing in portion that the trestle’s timbers experienced been soaked in a preservative which was uncovered to have poisonous homes, posing an environmental threat.

The city’s programs, nonetheless, had been abruptly halted when the Willow Glen Trestle Conservancy and Mates submitted its initial lawsuit, environment off a yearslong lawful battle finish with court hearings more than environmental affect experiences, final-minute judicial stays and expired permits and grants that then experienced to be renewed. The trestle was inevitably considered historic and positioned on the California Sign-up of Historic Assets regardless of metropolis objections, but the lawful conflict finished this summer time with the final injunction denied and the demolition of the railroad’s bridge a done deal.

Larry Ames, who led the Willow Glen Trestle Conservancy team, known as the opening of the new bridge “bittersweet.”

“I’m happy to see that the path relationship is done, but I’m dissatisfied that the Trestle could not have been part of it,” Ames stated. “It would have been the crown jewel of that trail.”

In the conclude, the battle about the bridge substitute price the city and its taxpayers a lot more than just many several years without having a trail link.

About the system of the seven-year lawful battle, the price tag tag for the bridge enhanced 52% — from the initial $1.63 million deal awarded to the Goron N. Ball development firm in May perhaps 2014 to a last cost of approximately $2.49 million permitted by the town council in November.

San Jose Community Works Director Matt Cano chalked up the elevated charges to climbing development costs, storing the prefabricated bridge for a long time and further staff and contractor time, which include at least four false-commences in which groups mobilized and then had to quit operate due to litigation. The more costs had been paid out for through a funds established aside for parks and path projects in just San Jose’s Council District 6, which encompasses Willow Glen and the Rose Yard neighborhoods.

San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, who initiated the land order and trail extension proposal virtually a 10 years ago, reported it was unfortunate that the trail connection and other initiatives ended up delayed, and in convert, grew to become extra expensive.

“Because of the frivolous litigation, other initiatives in this district bought place to the side and clearly this challenge is not being delivered on time as anticipated,” Oliverio claimed. “Yet, this was the hardest portion and we’re just enthusiastic to see it completed.”

With the bridge installation done, some community associates are now thinking forward to their subsequent priorities for path connections, which includes tying jointly a missing segment of the Los Gatos Creek Path from Meridian Avenue to Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen and forming a connection from the northern stop of the Los Gatos Creek path to the new Diridon Station and the Guadalupe River Path procedure in downtown San Jose.