City of Lafayette Dedicates 65-Foot Weathering-Steel Creek Footbridge and Riparian Habitat Restoration at Lafayette Community Park

Parks, Trails and Recreation commissioners with the City of Lafayette and watershed biologists from the Contra Costa Resource Conservation District dedicated a 65-foot clear-span weathering-steel pedestrian and equestrian footbridge alongside a 400-foot riparian bank restoration on Saturday evening across Las Trampas Creek at Lafayette Community Park at 480 St. Mary's Road in Lafayette. Linking the St. Mary's Road athletic fields and Burton Valley Elementary Bike Path to the 68-acre wooded ridge trails on the eastern bank, the new crossing replaces a narrow 1978 timber bridge whose mid-channel concrete pier had been undercut by winter storm flows.

Engineered to sit four feet above the 100-year flood elevation without any piers in the active stream channel, the prefabricated Corten weathering-steel Pratt truss bridge was hoisted into place onto deep micropile abutments set back twenty-two feet from the top of the creek bank. Its eight-foot-wide slip-resistant fiberglass-grate deck accommodates two-way hikers, trail runners, families with strollers, and emergency utility vehicles.

Below the bridge, creek restoration crews removed forty tons of concrete rubble and invasive giant reed (Arundo donax), reshaped eroded vertical dirt bluffs into terraced floodplains anchored with living arroyo willow wattles and redwood logs, and planted 350 native sword ferns, big-leaf maples, and coast redwoods to shade rainbow trout pools.

The $485,000 bridge and watershed project was funded through a California Department of Water Resources Urban Streams Restoration grant and City of Lafayette park trail reserves. Hikers can download park trail maps on the City of Lafayette Parks, Trails & Recreation Portal.