MENDOCINO CO., 10/5/26 — Starting Monday, Oct. 19, Caltrans crews will be swapping out damaged timbers on the Albion River Bridge, and Highway 1 drivers should plan on waits of up to 20 minutes on weekdays. Caltrans spokesperson Manny Machado said that these repairs to the bridge did not change the timeline, beginning in 2028, to replace the historic wooden structure that was built during World War II.Â
Delays for repairs will run 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays, according to a Caltrans traffic advisory.
Nights should stay open, for now. “Overnight closures are not anticipated, but this is subject to change,” Machado said in an email Friday.
If crews do need to close the bridge, they’d shut it from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., Sunday night through Friday morning, Machado said. “We may require up to 20 [nights], if necessary,” he said.
Why make repairs when the goal is replacement?
Steel and concrete bridges are stronger. The Albion River Bridge is built from connected timbers. Crews will pull out 53 worn timber pieces called scabs, each roughly 4 by 14 inches, and put new ones in. The damaged sections run along the bottom of the bridge’s northern timber spans, according to Caltrans. Crews will also inspect four metal connectors at the base of the bridge’s northern towers and replace any that need it.
During the time those timbers are out, the bridge is weaker until the new ones go in. “The removal of the timber scabs means that the bridge’s structure will not be complete, and the structural integrity of the bridge will be at risk,” California Coastal Commission staff wrote in a February report. Any traffic on the bridge at those times would be at risk, the report said.
The commission approved Caltrans’ repair permit in February. It allows up to 20 full night closures between Oct. 1, 2026, and May 1, 2027, on weeknights only and not in summer. Commission staff said the only way to avoid closures would be to build temporary bridges, which “would entail enormous extra costs.”
Recent inspections found damaged wood and metal that “present a more imminent threat to bridge stability,” according to the staff report. It estimated the repairs would take 30 working days.
No easy way around
The two-lane bridge, 969 feet long, links Mendocino and Fort Bragg to Elk and Point Arena. Commission staff called it “the only public access crossing of the Albion River from the mouth of the river at the coast to many miles upriver.”
“There is no official detour on state highways to bypass the possible bridge closures,” Machado said in an August email. Going around on other state highways means a trip of about 126 miles, according to Caltrans’ project website.
Emergency crews could still get across during a closure. The highway would be shut “except for emergency response,” Machado said, and crews would stop work to let first responders through. The traffic advisory says emergency responders will be escorted across.
Caltrans will have an emergency plan in place, as it did during recent work on the Jack Peters Creek and Pudding Creek bridges, Machado said. If night closures become necessary, the agency will notify nearby businesses, the Mendocino Unified School District, Mendocino Transit Authority, and fire, law enforcement and ambulance crews, he said.
What neighbors told the commission
The Albion River Bridge has been a subject of controversy for years, with Caltrans seeking to replace it and some residents working to save it. The commission took written public comment on the repair permit and published the letters in a correspondence packet for its Feb. 4 hearing.
Tony and Lisa Geer run the Ledford House Restaurant on the south side of the bridge and live on the north side. In a Jan. 29 email to the commission’s North Coast office, they wrote that their restaurant serves dinner and that “10:30-11:00pm is normal exit time for us.”
“Your proposed times/days/months means a full close down of our business,” they wrote. “Can we get more information? Actual dates?”
Commission staff answered closure concerns in a written response before the hearing. They said Caltrans had kept the closures as short as it could, scheduling them only late at night on weeknights from October through April.
Al Stein of Mendocino wanted the opposite. In a Jan. 30 letter to the commission, he urged commissioners to reject the repairs and move ahead with a new bridge. “The bridge is a ticking time bomb,” he wrote, and the commission “should therefore ban all repairs to this failing structure.”
Workers put the bridge up in 1944 out of salvaged timbers and steel trestle parts. The original design was a concrete arch, but wartime shortages blocked it. Commission staff call it one of the oldest working highway bridges in California, “and the only one constructed primarily by treated wood.”
Repairs, not replacement
The repair job is separate from Caltrans’ plan to replace the bridge. Machado said in August that details of the two projects “were getting mixed-up” in conversations and comments. The commission’s staff report drew the same line: the repair permit “does not go to the bridge itself or any potential approval of a new bridge structure.”
The old bridge doesn’t meet modern earthquake standards and was designed for lighter vehicles, such as 15-ton trucks, according to Caltrans’ project website. The agency also calls the bridge “fracture critical.” Its steel main span has no backup structure, so if key parts fail, the bridge could collapse during an earthquake or under heavy, repeated loads, the website says.
A new bridge would cost $126 million to $150 million, according to the project’s environmental document, Machado said. The project website shows construction starting in 2028, and the new bridge opening in 2031, and says those dates could change.
This year, Caltrans planned to drill test holes at nine spots near the bridge to study the ground under a possible new one, according to a May 1 Coastal Commission waiver that let the drilling go ahead without a full coastal permit. Machado said in late August the drilling should wrap up that week and that crews wouldn’t use a helicopter.
Caltrans has sought to replace the bridge since 2007. In 2017, after years of community resistance, the agency agreed to consider rehabilitating the bridge alongside replacing it. In 2024, Caltrans dropped rehabilitation and put forward a replacement-only project. Machado said at the time that the rehabilitation alternatives “did not meet the purpose and need of the project.” At a September 2024 meeting, Caltrans showed photos of split timbers and rusted bolts to support replacement.
The Albion Bridge Stewards, a group that opposes replacing the bridge, sued Caltrans in Mendocino County Superior Court in October 2025, challenging the replacement project’s environmental review, according to the group.
Project updates are posted at albionriverbridgeproject.com.