"How could the City of Thousand Oaks lose a million dollar bridge?" you might ask. Well they didn't actually lose it...they just built it in the wrong location. Anyone who has driven over the new bridge knows what I am talking about. For some reason the city built the new bridge about 20 feet north of its intended location. Maybe it was a surveying error. Maybe it was a math error. Maybe the engineer got his plans mixed up. Whatever the reason, after the bridge was completed, the entrance and exit roads had to be modified so that they crossed the bridge. This requires drivers to make a number of "S" turns on the bridge approach as well as when they leave the bridge. And if you cross over the bridge at the posted speed limit you better have driving gloves and a good set of radial tires.
The first photo below is taken as you approach the bridge from the East, heading West towards Lake Sherwood. You can see the bridge off to the right in the photo and in the center of the photo you can see the old road heading off in the distance. As you approach the bridge you must make a hard right turn to enter the bridge and a hard left turn as you exit. In addition, you must pass a right turn only lane which requires an additional left turn as you approach the bridge.
Driving from the West, heading East across the bridge is even more exciting, as shown below. Coming from the Lake Sherwood area you follow a gradual left curve down a hill. At the bottom of the hill you must immediately turn to the right to cross an old narrow bridge (foreground), and then jog to the left to cross the new bridge. Upon exiting the new bridge, you must turn right to get back to the original road and then left to straighten out and proceed down the highway.
In the photo below, the bicyclist is heading in the direction where the old bridge use to be located. If they had built the new bridge where the old bridge used to be, the biker would be able to travel in a straight line across the bridge and join the old road that you can see off in the distance on the other side of the bridge.
Being the civic minded person that I am, I recently contacted the City of Thousand Oaks to discuss the error. The city engineer to whom I spoke was totally unaware of the mistake, and in fact he treated me with great contempt for making such an accusation. I had him get on his computer and look up Google Maps where we zoomed in on the bridge. When he saw the degree of the error his jaw dropped. Together we estimated that the bridge is located about 20 feet to the North of the correct location. In the aerial photo referenced below you can see the white concrete bridge in the center of the photo. It is clear to see that for some reason, the City of Thousand Oaks misplaced their $1M bridge by about half of its width.
It sure is a nice sturdy looking bridge though!
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