Trancas Creek bridge faces new round of construction Play

Construction is about to start on the Trancas Creek bridge project — you know, the bridge that was supposedly finished last year. Barricades went up this week to fence off the inland side of the brand new bridge.

L.A. County Waterworks has to go in to replace the temporary bypass water main that went around the construction project. About 500 feet of pipeline has to be installed from Guernsey Avenue, connected under the new bridge, and then connected to existing lines at Trancas Canyon Road.

It will take seven months for this pipe to be installed, says L.A. County.

This is just the latest chapter in a series of almost laughable blunders and delays — most of them from Caltrans — at the bridge replacement project. The $12 million bridge replacement ran millions over budget and about two years past its deadline.

There were numerous construction blunders by the state. They failed to test the ground to see how deep the bridge supports needed to be. They failed to realize there were fiber optic lines buried in the area. And they left construction debris on the site for years.

Now, just as that mess is gone, a new construction trailer and yard have appeared as the county starts the water line.

And when it's finished, the city of Malibu plans to start construction on a right turn lane for vehicles to get off PCH and prepare to turn into the shopping center and onto Trancas Canyon Road. That $1 million project is just about to start, about the same time that the county is finished putting in their water line — that it did not put in when the bridge was built.