We've been waiting for this project for years and anxiously await the San Luis Rey River opening freely to the Pacific Ocean.
The removal of the Pacific Street crossing started this week just south of the Oceanside Harbor. The crossing, which was replaced by the Pacific Street Bridge, was prone to being washed out by heavy rains. (Photo by Jamie Scott Lytle - Staff Photographer)
OCEANSIDE: Pacific Street Crossing finally meets its end : North County Times - Californian: "OCEANSIDE ---- A long-armed excavator worked this week to remove the final boulders and metal pipes that have kept the Pacific Street Crossing in place for decades.
'We should be finished with removing everything and knocking it down by Halloween,' said David Toschak, manager of the city's Pacific Street Bridge project.
On Sept. 9, the city opened the crossing's replacement, a modern 351-foot concrete bridge that cost $18 million. With the new bridge serving as a second entrance and exit for Oceanside Harbor, the old crossing has become redundant.
Crews worked this week to remove tons of protective 'rip rap' boulders and steel pipes that allowed the San Luis Rey River to pass under the sand-and-rock crossing.
After all of the hard stuff gets hauled away, Toschak said bulldozers will flatten the sand berm underneath. Soon all that will remain is a large lump of sand at the river mouth. The project manager said he expects Mother Nature to remove the sand this winter.
'Without the rip rap, the next big storm will just wash it out,' Toschak said.
It will be an ironic end for a structure that the city of Oceanside has rebuilt and fought to protect from winter storms for decades. John Daley, local historian and owner of the 101 Cafe, said the crossing opened shortly after the Oceanside Harbor was completed in 1963. Heavy storms, he said, would wash the structure out to sea every four years or so.
Once, in the 1980s, Daley said the city refused to rebuild the crossing, so he and a group of contractors did the job themselves.
"We took it to (the) Coastal (Commission) and everything," Daley said. "I think it probably cost like $10,000 or $15,000 back at that time."
Today the crossing creates a kind of shallow pool between the new bridge and the old crossing. No one seems sure what will happen to the birds and plants that currently live in the area once the river mouth is opened to the sea.
Daley said the area around the San Luis Rey river mouth was known as "beach lake" before the harbor was built.
"It would close off in the summer and form a big lagoon," Daley said. "I remember it was big enough that they actually had boats on it with people (water) skiing."
Meanwhile, work is almost complete on remaining components of the bridge project. Workers are putting the finishing touches on reconstructed harbor parking lots that were disturbed by the construction process.
Parking lots six, seven, nine and 10 are to be closed from Nov. 10-14 for final asphalt sealing and striping. During that time, the city asks harbor visitors to park in lots eight and one.
Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com."
