City Council delays decision on controversial bridge project

The Palm Springs City Council voted Wednesday evening to postpone a decision on the South Palm Canyon Drive low water crossing bridge replacement for 60 days amid heated debate between environmental advocates and residents concerned about public safety.

The project, located at South Palm Canyon Drive at Arenas Canyon (near East Bogert Trail), has been in development since 2006 and aims to provide flood protection at a crossing that has repeatedly closed during heavy storms, cutting off access to approximately 700 homes in the area.

During Wednesday’s regular meeting, councilmembers heard that emergency services responded to roughly 590 calls in that neighborhood over the past year, creating significant concern about access during flooding events.

“This is a human safety issue. This is a life safety issue,” said Karen Miller, an Andreas Palms resident, during a public comment period at the start of the meeting. “There are approximately 700 homes in this area with probably 1,500 people at any given time that can be living in them.”

The project would replace the current roadway with an elevated bridge structure, allowing floodwaters from Oswit Canyon to pass underneath through a rock-lined channel. According to city staff, the alluvial fan can generate runoff of up to 1.3 million gallons per minute during a 100-year storm event.

The estimated cost has ballooned to approximately $9 -10 million, funded primarily through $4.5 million in federal Highway Bridge Program funds, with the city supplying about $2 million then asking CalTrans to come up with the rest of the funding.

However, the funding carries strict deadlines. City Engineer Joel Montalvo warned that the city risks losing federal money if construction isn’t started on the bridge by December 2026.

Councilmembers raised concerns about the reliability of federal funding, given the national uncertainty. Montalvo said that money is committed, and he’s confident about that, but he added that international uncertainty could lead to problems in the supply chain and increased material costs.

About a dozen environmental advocates, including many representing Oswit Land Trust (OLT), opposed the project, arguing that flooding at the site is rare and that the environmental impacts would be significant. OLT owns land adjacent to the bridge.

“In the six years since Oswit Land Trust purchased the property, we have removed a concrete road that could potentially add to runoff volume and engaged in many additional forms of restoration and trail designation work,” said one speaker. “Our efforts have enhanced and extended the habitat range of the endangered bighorn sheep.”

A key point of contention was the age of the environmental review. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) report for the project was completed in 2012, which critics argue is now outdated given changes to the area, including conservation efforts.

Other residents expressed frustration over the lack of public meetings since the project was last discussed at a council meeting in June 2024 and subsequently pulled from the agenda.

Councilmember Grace Garner was sympathetic to their concerns but reminded her colleagues to consider residents who would be affected by the bridge project but were not at the meeting. 

“[Projects] can get derailed because people who are the loudest are the people who do not want [the project],” she said. “I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case here, but it is always a difficulty. We have to weigh who’s in the room and who’s not in the room and why.”

Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein expressed concern about delaying a public safety project, referencing the cautionary tale of Araby Cove, another Palm Springs neighborhood that sometimes gets cut off during flooding.

In that case, residents opposed a bridge and councilmembers at the time rejected the project. The city subsequently lost $10.1 million in funding from CalTrans, and when flooding washed away the road in 2019, the community sought emergency funding to build the bridge, but state officials declined to restore the funding.

“We know that we have severe weather issues going on in our whole region,” Bernstein said. “We had the 2019 [flood], we had a hurricane in the desert… We have our bridges at Indian Canyon and Gene Autry and Vista Chino that are closed far more than they ever were.”

The council ultimately voted to table the decision for 60 days and directed staff to hold both in-person and virtual community meetings to gather more input before making a final decision.

Construction would take approximately 50 weeks if approved after the delay, putting completion close to the December 2026 deadline for maintaining funding eligibility.

---