{"id":282888,"date":"2026-04-24T00:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/282888\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T00:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:20:15","slug":"2-5-million-bridge-over-highway-101-planned-in-northern-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/282888\/","title":{"rendered":"$2.5 million bridge over Highway 101 planned in Northern California"},"content":{"rendered":"

A trio of California members of Congress announced last week that they\u2019ve earmarked $2.5 million in federal funds for designing and building a pedestrian bridge over\u00a0Highway 101<\/a> on tribal lands in northernmost California. The proposed project \u2014 part bridge, part monument gateway \u2014 addresses \u201ca hazardous intersection area\u201d on Highway 101 through Smith River, according to a news release from the Tolowa Dee-ni\u2019\u00a0Nation.<\/p>\n

Scott Graves, a spokesperson for the tribe, told SFGATE in an email that the pedestrian bridge benefits North Coast residents, tribal citizens and visitors. \u201cThe area has a decades-long history of close calls and several pedestrian accidents involving non-fatal accidents,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The bridge would span the highway near the Lucky 7 Casino & Hotel, less than 5 miles from the Oregon-California border. Speaking from the gas station where she works near the proposed site on Thursday, Sadie Wheeler said she sees a need for mitigating traffic. \u201cDrivers will blatantly ignore the crosswalk, leaving people to wait for somebody to stop,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Jared Huffman jointly announced<\/a> the project, which is funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed under former President Joe Biden. Huffman wrote that the tribe was driving the effort to complete the bridge.<\/p>\n

According to OpenSecrets, individual members of the\u00a0Tolowa Dee-ni\u2019 Nation have donated at least $10,000 to Huffman<\/a> over the course of several campaign cycles since 2014, while also supporting Padilla and Schiff in smaller amounts.<\/p>\n

The $2,499,000 award allows for a preliminary design and final engineering<\/a> to construct the Gateway Monument Pedestrian Bridge. The tribe said it will collaborate with cultural advisers and community members to incorporate Tolowa Dee-ni\u2019\u00a0language and art into the bridge\u2019s design.<\/p>\n

Graves said that the Tolowa Dee-ni\u2019\u00a0Nation wants to make the crossing safer, not just for accessing the casino, but for services, offices and the Head Start education facility.<\/p>\n

Officer Pete Gonzalez with the California Highway Patrol said they\u2019ve already made an effort to enhance safety on Highway 101 in the area, including adding cautionary notice to the 45 mph speed limit and repairing the shoulder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonzalez reviewed incident reports on Highway 101 near the casino and said he found two crashes involving pedestrians in the past decade, including one in 2023 that was not fatal. He added that nearby Highway 199 is more prone to car crashes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trio of California members of Congress announced last week that they\u2019ve earmarked $2.5 million in federal funds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1227,3100,1228],"class_list":{"0":"post-282888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-sfgnorthcoast","12":"tag-sfgpolitics","13":"tag-sfgtravel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}