Bee Editorial Staff Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Monday, October 7, 2002
Anyone who has walked over the Tower Bridge to go to a River Cats game
knows how dangerous it can be. On game days, hundreds of people inch along
the narrow sidewalks, many with young children in tow. Frustrated pedestrians
caught in the sidewalk traffic jam regularly invade the roadway and risk
getting hit by cars.
Widening the pedestrian walkways on either side of the bridge is not a project
that can afford to wait while bureaucrats in Washington and Sacramento scratch
their heads about whether the historical integrity of the bridge is being
compromised. This is an emergency. Someone is going to get killed.
The West Sacramento City Council understands that. The council has directed
its staff to contact state legislators and members of Congress to try to
short-circuit the special environmental review that federal highway officials
say is required because the bridge is listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. Sacramento needs to join West Sacramento in that effort.
After all, the baseball stadium is on the other side of the river, so more
of their residents are probably at risk than West Sacramento's.
Federal funds for engineering and design
work on the sidewalk project were supposed to be released next year. The
historic review could delay the project until 2006. That's three more baseball
seasons away, hundreds of more River Cat games that fans will have to dodge
cars to get to.
Local governments have not been insensitive to the bridge's historical designation.
A preservationist expert hired to review preliminary plans says the bridge's
historic significance won't be diminished.
But, even if that were the case, safety must come out on top in a public
policy contest like this, where public safety competes with historical preservation.
As West Sacramento City Councilman Christopher Cabaldon rightly expressed
it, "We want the bridge to be a bridge, not simply a museum piece." Nor a
death trap.
