It could take decades longer for it to become a reality but steps were taken last week to push along design plans for a new bridge spanning the Tuolumne River linking Ceres and Modesto.
For decades the county has been planning a bridge linking Garner Road on the north to Faith Home Road to the south of the river has but last week the Stanislaus Council of Governments (StanCOG) Policy Board approved a Measure L Regional Control Project Cooperative Agreement with Stanislaus County for plans, specifications and estimates (PSE) of the Faith Home Road Expressway Project.
When voters approved the Measure L transportation sales tax in 2016, StanCOG designated spending 28 percent on 16 regional road projects, one of them being the Faith Home Road Expressway. Plans are to allocate $10 million for PSE and right-of-way for the Faith Home project in fiscal years 2025-26 through 2028-29. But the county asked for $8 million of it last week to get the design rolling.
Like many expensive road projects, StanCOG doesn’t have the funds to build the project and will be forced to seek state and federal governments.
A connection northeast of Ceres would alleviate congestion on Mitchell Road and the Mitchell Road Bridge which carries about 80,000 vehicles each day. The proposed bridge has been considered a high priority of the county for at least 25 years and was listed as a Priority 1 project in a 1990 Expressway study. The expressway would provide a key link to the east sides of Ceres and Modesto and provide a direct link to Riverbank and Oakdale to southbound Highway 99. The bridge would also help commuters who live in northeast Modesto who work in Turlock, and vice versa.
To align Garner and Faith Home, the connection would have a slight realignment along the farming fields between the bluff south of Finch Road and the river. The current railroad track owned by the Modesto & Empire Traction (MET) Company near Finch Road would be moved southward so that the extension of Garner Road could dip under before rising back up over the flood plain.
An earthen peninsula berm will be constructed into the flood plain toward the river for the new road before the bridge begins. Beard has offered to donate most of the 160,000 cubic yards of dirt needed to form the earthen berm. The total length of the new bridge and floodplain structures would be 1,823 feet and composed of the 861-foot-long main bridge frame, 450-foot-long causeway box girder bridge, and a 512-footlong causeway slab bridge.
To achieve an economical 210-foot length of the three center spans, a haunched soffit (arch like shape along the bottom of the bridge) would be utilized to reduce the structure depth at mid-span and minimize loads on the supporting piers.
The bridge would initially be sized for two lanes with eight-foot shoulders and a center concrete barrier to prevent head-on crashes.
All causeway bridge foundations would be outside the main river channel and would utilize pile foundations using permanent or temporary casings. No cofferdams would be required, but pile casings for the causeway box girder frame near the river may require de-watering during construction.
The intersections at the terminal end at Garner Road would be constructed as four-lane intersections for future expansion although initially it will be only two lanes. On the southern terminus, the intersection of Faith Home and Hatch roads would have to be shifted to the east to realign with the bridge.
