Detours on the Parkway
South Howe detour (Click to enlarge. Image courtesy Army Corps of Engineers)
If you’ve been on the parkway trail near Howe Avenue and Sac State, you’ll have noticed there are a couple of detours in place that you’ll need to work around.
On the south side of the river (Sac State side), there is a short detour around the bridge at Howe Avenue. You cannot pass underneath Howe Avenue along the river, but must go around on a slightly sketchy gravel trail along La Riviera Drive. (See map. For pedestrians, this is no big deal. For bicyclists, I understand it is annoying.)
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District, this project will “close a 200-foot gap in the existing cutoff wall located on the south bank of the American River at the Howe Avenue bridge. In addition, crews will install a blanket of low-permeability material on the waterside slope to reduce erosion, and will raise a 175-foot-long section of the existing levee upstream of Howe Avenue by an average of one foot.”
You can learn more about the levee projects here.
Then, just a bit downstream, repairs are underway on the Guy West Bridge. As of today, the main trail is open but the levee road approaching the bridge on the north side of the river is closed.
However, Expect the bridge to be closed this weekend from 6:00 AM Saturday August 2nd to 6:00 PM Sunday August 3rd.
It is being repaired and repainted to it’s original glorious red (technically International Orange), so as to be a more accurate replica of the Golden Gate Bridge.
You can learn more about the Guy West Bridge repairs here.
Plan accordingly!