California infrastructure

BIDEN SIGNS INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: CONGRESSWOMAN JACOBS AND STAFF ANSWER QUESTIONS FROM ECM ON LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE PRIORITIES

By Miriam Raftery

Photo, left: Congresswoman Sara Jacobs and colleagues with President Joe Biden at infrastructure bill signing

November 19, 2021(San Diego’s East County) –  Could funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act just signed into law by President Joe Biden be used to fund sorely needed projects to benefit East County, from wildfire prevention to reducing freeway gridlock, taking communities off-grid, and improving dam safety?  East County Magazine reached out to Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, who attended the bill signing at the White House. She issued a statement on some local priorities and had her staff respond on other potential projects including:

  • Reducing gridlock on State Route 52 in Santee
  • Repairing dams at El Capitan and Lake Hodges reservoirs
  • Increasing mass transit for our region
  • Cleaning up a toxic underground plume near Gillespie Field and an elementary school in El Cajon
  • Taking communities such as  Descanso, that have suffered through many power outages, off-grid to produce their own clean energy for reliable electricity;
  • Replacing lead water pipes

“We have big infrastructure needs in San Diego, from broadband to transportation to wildfire prevention, but the good news is that this bill provides new funding to meet these needs. Now it’s time to make sure that San Diego gets our share of the funding and I look forward to working with our state and local partners to get that done,” Jacob says.


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BRIDGE COLLAPSE ON I-10 HIGHLIGHTS STATE’S CRUMBLING INRASTRUCTURE

 

 

By Miriam Raftery

Cal Fire photo: Cal Fire workers rescue motorist who plunged into rushing waters when bridge collapsed

July 20, 2015 (Riverside) – A bridge collapse Sunday that shut down Interstate 10 between Palm Springs and the Arizona border occurred during heavy rains.  The cause of the failure, however, may well be outright neglect. 

Built in 1967, the bridge was listed as “functionally obsolete” in the 2014 National Bridge Inventory—one of hundreds of bridges across California in need of replacement or major repair.

State Senator Jeff Stone (R-Riverside) has issued a press release stating that the incident “further illustrates the rapidly deteriorating state of California’s roads and highways and the urgent need to rebuild our state’s crumbling infrastructure.”


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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.