Bridge in Fresno County foothills costs taxpayers nearly $5 million. Why so much? | Opinion

Reality Check is a Fresno Bee series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email tips@fresnobee.com.

Public infrastructure projects always come with a certain amount of sticker shock.

Fresno County is no exception. Which explains the baffled and slightly cynical response to a new bridge that opened earlier this month in the foothills east of Clovis.

Located on Burrough Valley Road near the Tollhouse Road junction, the Dry Creek Bridge stands 114 feet long and 35 feet, 6 inches wide (accommodating two 12-foot traffic lanes and two 4-foot shoulders) and replaces a century-old wooden structure.

But it’s the price tag that caused exasperation and displeasure among the general populace on Facebook: $4.8 million.

Opinion

How does a bridge that’s only 20 feet longer than a basketball court cost nearly $5 million? It’s a question that begged an answer.

“Building bridges is extremely expensive,” said Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig, whose district includes “hundreds” of spans over major rivers and seasonal creeks.

“There are so many more expenses involved with bridge construction today than there were 100 years ago. And today’s bridges will last longer.”

Examples cited by Magsig included environmental clearances, traffic mitigation, higher safety standards and pay for construction workers, removal of the existing bridge and the increased cost of raw materials.

Fresno County supervisors awarded the construction contract for the new Dry Creek Bridge in March 2023 — shortly after the old span’s structural integrity was surely tested by flood-level flows from heavy rainfall.

The winning bid of $4,864,640, submitted by Clovis-based Agee Construction, was the lowest of five bids received by the county and lower than the county engineer’s estimate of $5,295,100, according to the staff report.

“There were multiple bidders for this project,” Magsig said. “When it gets scary is when you only get one or two. …

“When I saw that Agee was bidding for this work, it told me they had other projects that were winding down and had the capacity to take on a new contract.”

Most of the $4.8 million price tag — 88.53%, to be precise — was funded by the federal Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program. The local match of 11.47% came from SB 1, aka the state gas tax.

Nearly $1M in concrete

Now that the context and generalities are out of the way, let’s get into specifics. Bridges are primarily built from concrete, so the most expensive item on Agee Construction’s winning bid was structural concrete: $480,400 for 286 cubic yards of polymer fiber concrete and $341,640 for 234 cubic yards of the regular stuff.

Add $99,680 worth of concrete for the retaining wall and $67,050 for the box culvert on Dry Creek, and that’s nearly a million bucks ($988,850) just in concrete.

What accounts for the rest? There’s a lot. It cost $412,787 to excavate the roadway and structures and $452,875 to backfill them, including 4,050 cubic yards of imported material.

Four types of concrete pilings were used at a total cost of $344,428. It cost $200,000 to set up a temporary traffic control system and $200,000 more to temporarily divert the creek. The project allocated $197,772 for steel reinforcing bars, $192,215 for erosion control boulders and $139,740 for crushed rocks. Covering the new bridge with hot mix asphalt accounted for $175,200.

Other costs itemized in the 87-item winning bid included $350,000 for mobilization (i.e. expenses to transport equipment and materials); $283,800 to furnish and erect the box culvert; $125,200 for a crash cushion system; $68,000 to remove the old bridge, $31,000 for job site management; $29,000 for a bird exclusion plan and devices; and $8,000 for construction insurance.

I could’ve listed dozens more.

An unincorporated foothill community, Burrough Valley is home to roughly 1,000 people. Residents use the bridge to access shopping centers and schools in and around Prather and Tollhouse. It’s also the closest route to Clovis and Fresno.

The last major bridge project in the foothills was completed in 2019, when $7.6 million was spent to replace Italian Bar Bridge spanning the San Joaquin River near Redinger Lake.

It would be interesting to know the percentage of Fresno County residents that use these out-of-the-way bridges. It’s probably very small. But we’re all helping to pay for them.