BALTIMORE — The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in the port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday, as divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water. The others were presumed dead, and officials said search efforts had been exhausted.

Investigators began collecting evidence from the cargo ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bodies of the two men, ages 35 and 26, were located by divers in the morning inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced at an evening news conference.

The victims were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said.

All search efforts have been exhausted, and based on sonar scans, authorities “firmly” believe the other vehicles with victims inside are encased in superstructures and concrete from the collapsed bridge, Butler said.

A coworker of the people missing said yesterday that he was told the workers were on break and sitting in their trucks parked on the bridge when it crumpled.

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at a news conference that authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo the maintenance. He added that they were not informed of any problems.

The ship collided into a support pillar early Tuesday, causing the span to collapse. The bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water were recovered earlier Wednesday.

The investigation picked up speed as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that’s part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also closed the port that is vital to the city’s shipping industry.

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship and planned to recover information from its electronics and paperwork, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said.

The agency also is reviewing the voyage data recorder recovered by the Coast Guard and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident.

The ship’s crew issued a mayday call early Tuesday, saying they had lost power and the vessel’s steering system just minutes before striking one of the bridge’s columns.

At least eight people went into the water. Two were rescued, but the other six — part of a construction crew that was filling potholes on the bridge — were missing and presumed dead.

The debris complicated the search, according to a Homeland Security memo described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the divers faced dangerous conditions.

“They are down there in darkness where they can literally see about a foot in front of them. They are trying to navigate mangled metal, and they’re also in a place it is now presumed that people have lost their lives,” he said Wednesday.

Among the missing were people from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, according to diplomats from those countries.

One worker, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the U.S. nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as entrepreneurial and hard-working. He started last fall with the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge.

Capt. Michael Burns Jr. of the Maritime Center for Responsible Energy said bringing a ship into or out of ports with limited room to maneuver is “one of the most technically challenging and demanding things that we do.”

There are “few things that are scarier than a loss of power in restricted waters,” he said. And when a ship loses propulsion and steering, “then it’s really at the mercy of the wind and the current.”

Video showed the ship moving at what Maryland’s governor said was about 9 mph (15 kph) toward the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) bridge. Traffic was still crossing the span, and some vehicles appeared to escape with only seconds to spare. The crash caused the span to break and fall into the water within seconds.

The last-minute warning from the ship allowed police just enough time to stop traffic on the interstate highway. One officer parked sideways across the lanes and planned to drive onto the bridge to alert a construction crew once another officer arrived. But he did not get the chance as the powerless the vessel barrelled into the bridge.

Attention also turned to the container ship Dali and its past.

Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, said the impact happened while it was under the control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely in and out of ports.

The ship, which was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel.

The vessel passed foreign port state inspections in June and September 2023. In the June 2023 inspection, a faulty monitor gauge for fuel pressure was rectified before the vessel departed the port, Singapore’s port authority said in a statement Wednesday.

The ship was traveling under a Singapore flag, and officials there said they will be conducting their own investigation in addition to supporting U.S. authorities.

The sudden loss of a highway that carries 30,000 vehicles a day, and the disruption of a vital shipping port, will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also U.S. consumers who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.

“A lot of people don’t realize how important the port is just to everything,” said Cat Watson, who takes the bridge to work everyday and lives close enough that she was awakened by the collision. “We’re going to be feeling it for a very long time.”

The Port of Baltimore is a busy entry point along the East Coast for new vehicles made in Germany, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with coal and farm equipment.

Ship traffic entering and leaving the port has been suspended indefinitely. Windward Maritime, a maritime risk-management company, said its data shows a large increase in ships that are waiting for a port to go to, with some anchored outside Baltimore or nearby Annapolis.

Speaking at a White House news conference, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration was focused on reopening the port and rebuilding the bridge, but he avoided putting a timeline on those efforts. He noted that the original bridge took five years to complete.

Another priority is dealing with shipping issues, and Buttigieg planned to meet Thursday with supply chain officials.

From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.

Witte reported from Dundalk, Maryland. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report, including Nathan Ellgren, Colleen Long, Sarah Brumfield, Rebecca Santana, Jake Offenhartz, Joshua Goodman, Ben Finley, Claudia Lauer, Juliet Linderman, Josh Boak, David McHugh, John Seewer, Michael Kunzelman, Mike Catalini and Sarah Rankin.

The city of Chico teamed up with Caltrans to build a bicycle path, called Bikeway 99, over East 20th Street. Construction will begin again today. The project is in its fifth and final phase and started in 2016.

The path will be a link between both sides of East 20th Street and Business Lane, which will allow people access to restaurants, businesses, the Butte College Chico Center and the Chico Mall.

Since the project route is separate from vehicular congestion, the bikeway will provide a safe route for pedestrians and bicyclists. The bridge will also link Eaton Road to the Skyway.

The $23.8 million project received funding of $5.6 million from local funds, streets and road funds and transportation funds, $5.8 million from Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds and $12.4 million in funding from the Active Transportation Program.

The bikeway will have vegetation management to stop hazards from forming. The ramp structure will include fencing and physical barriers to discourage graffiti and loitering.

“Caltrans is happy to support the city of Chico’s multiuse trail project at the (East) 20th Street northbound on and off ramps which will provide a continuous path of travel for bicyclists and pedestrians to Bidwell Park and surrounding areas,” said director of Caltrans District Three Sergio Aceves.

Access within the project zone will see traffic control and includes temporary delays, detours and some closures which ensures crews can work safely. Some nighttime work will also occur. Drivers should allow extra time or plan other routes so as not to interrupt construction crews.

“The current absence of a safe and direct pedestrian/bike path poses significant challenges to residents and discourages walking or biking to local schools, job centers, commercial areas and public services,” said Brendan Ottoboni, Chico’s director of Public Works. “The city is committed to bridging the gap and fostering a more sustainable, inclusive community.”

Ottoboni said the bike path is extremely important for the city.

“Caltrans is happy to support the city of Chico’s proposed pedestrian overcrossing and class one multiuse trail project at the 20th Street northbound on/off ramps that will provide a continuous path of travel for bicyclists and pedestrians to Bidwell Park and surrounding areas” said Aceves.

For more information visit https://chico.ca.us/Departments/Engineering/Capital-Projects/SR-99-Corridor-Bikeway-Facility-Phase-5/index.html.

In the Bay Area, where dozens of large cargo ships, oil tankers, cruise ships and other vessels sail in and out of San Francisco Bay every week, the calamity raised the question: Could it happen here?

Ships have occasionally hit several of the eight major bridges that cross San Francisco Bay over the decades. But for a variety of reasons, the chances of a bridge collapsing are very low, experts said Tuesday.

“It would be ridiculous to say it could never happen here,” said Scott Humphrey, chairman of the San Francisco Bay Harbor Safety Committee, a state organization of industry, government, and nonprofit maritime organizations that meets monthly to improve shipping safety. “But it’s extremely unlikely that anything of that magnitude could happen here.”

All of the major bridges that cross San Francisco Bay, including the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, have concrete buffers, called fenders, that surround the columns supporting the bridge near the water line.

If a large ship loses power or steering and hits one, it glances off, said Bart Ney, a spokesman for Caltrans, which owns most of the bridges spanning the bay.

“The bridges are designed for it,” he said. “The strategy is that if you get a vessel that is going to collide with the bridge, you want to keep it from touching the bridge. All of our bridges have a robust fender system that are designed to absorb energy. The bridge does more damage to the ship than the ship does to the bridge.”

The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore did not have the same fender system, he said.

Further, the Bay Area is known for earthquakes. All of the major bridges across San Francisco Bay have undergone an extensive earthquake retrofits in the past 20 years, Ney said. They have been fitted with seismic dampening systems — joints that allow bridges to flex and move in earthquakes, along with huge hinges, and other features that not only help them survive earthquakes but avoid collapse in ship collisions, he said.

Khalid Mosalam, a professor of civil engineering at UC Berkeley, watched the video Tuesday of the Baltimore bridge collapse frame-by-frame.

“It’s a very classical mode of failure. It was breathtaking,” he said. “You study these things and learn about them and teach them to students, but you rarely see it happen, which is good thing.”

Many of California’s bridges are more resilient than bridges in other parts of the world, he added.

“Because of earthquake designs, the columns in West Coast bridges tend to be a lot stronger, a lot bigger,” he said. “If an accident like this happened here, I doubt it would lead to destruction like we saw in the video.”

But accidents do happen.

Last year, 2,874 large ships arrived and departed San Francisco Bay, sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge carrying everything from oil from Alaska to steel shipping containers full of electronics and clothes, according to the Marine Exchange of the San Francisco Bay Region, an organization that tracks ship movements. Expert harbor pilots board the ships and help them navigate when they are entering and leaving the Bay.

On Nov. 7, 2007, the 901-foot Cosco Busan, a cargo ship headed from Oakland to South Korea, sideswiped a Bay Bridge support column protected by a fender in dense morning fog.

The incident ripped a 211-foot-long gash in the ship and dumped 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay. No people were injured or killed, but the spill oiled 69 miles of shore. Roughly 6,800 birds were killed.

An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the ship’s pilot, John Cota, of Petaluma, had a “degraded cognitive performance from his use of impairing prescription medications.” Cota, the investigation concluded, had a history of alcohol abuse and prescriptions for at least nine medications for pain, depression and sleep disorders.

Other causes of the Cosco Busan incident included a lack of communication between Cota and the ship’s Chinese captain; inadequate crew training; and a failure by the Coast Guard to warn Cota by radio that he was heading for the bridge.

The bridge fender suffered only minor damage. The Bay Bridge itself was not damaged.

The Cosco Busan’s owner, Regal Stone Ltd., and its operator, Fleet Management Ltd., both of Hong Kong, paid $44 million to settle the civil case with state prosecutors.

Not long afterward, in 2013, another ship, the Overseas Reymar, a 748-foot-long oil tanker, struck the Bay Bridge in heavy fog. A state investigation found that the pilot, Capt. Guy Kleess of San Francisco, made a risky last-minute change in course and “lost awareness of what was happening around him.”

The oil tanker was empty, having offloaded its cargo at a refinery in Martinez the night before. No oil was spilled.

The accident caused $1.4 million in damage to the fender but did not structurally damage the bridge, Caltrans reported. The ship sustained $220,000 in damage.

After the incident, the harbor safety committee passed guidelines recommending large ships not sail under the Bay Bridge in heavy fog.

There are still some areas of concern. State law requires oil tankers to have tug boat escorts so they can be pushed away from danger if they lose power or steering. But tug boat escorts are not required for cargo ships moving in and out of San Francisco Bay. In 2004, following a series of Mercury News stories exposing the risk, state lawmakers passed a bill to require tug escorts for chemical tanker ships in San Francisco Bay, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill after the shipping industry raised cost concerns.

Early reports indicate that the ship in Baltimore reported it had lost power before colliding with the bridge. In April 2022, the Wan Hai 176, a 564-foot container ship, lost engine power and drifted seven miles off the coast of Point Reyes with 21 people aboard. It was intercepted by tug boats and towed into San Francisco Bay without incident. The Singapore-flagged vessel had more than 700 containers on board and 39,000 gallons of fuel.

“We have seen accidents in the Bay Area involving large ships in the past,” said Ben Eichenberg, an attorney with Baykeeper, an environmental group. “If a ship loses power, taking out a bridge isn’t the only disaster that can happen. It can run aground. It can leak oil. This Maryland accident should get us to review all of our safety procedures. There is going to be some soul searching here.”

The first project, a joint effort between the city and Caltrans, is slated for the corridor of Highway 162 and Oroville Dam Boulevard starting at Highway 70 and continuing on Highway 162 and Olive Highway to Foothill Boulevard. The work, scheduled to begin in May, will include the installation of sidewalks where there currently aren’t any; new driveway approaches; new conduit for street lighting; and a high-visibility crosswalk at Spencer Street. Then, in early 2025, new street surfacing, traffic and street lights, curbs and gutters will be added. The majority of the work will be on the south side of Highway 162 and will “be very nice,” said Fred Mayo, director of public works.

The next two street improvement projects along Washington Avenue and Table Mountain Boulevard are in the planning, financing and engineering stage and the city is looking for community input on the projects.

The first opportunity for the public to see the conceptual plans and drawings for the street improvements is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday when the city hosts a public workshop in the Oroville City Council Chambers at 1735 Montgomery St. Those who wish to participate but cannot attend the workshop will have access via Zoom using meeting ID 867 7864 5568 and passcode 03212024. The next workshop, also taking place in the council chambers at 5:30 p.m., will be April 18.

“The main point of the workshop is community outreach, to make the community aware of what we’re looking at doing,” said Mayo. “We want to engage with the community; hear their ideas, hopes and concerns about the conceptual drawings and plans for the improvements.”

The Washington Avenue project covers just over half a mile from Highway 162 north ending just short of the railroad bridge crossing. This includes the high-pedestrian traffic section of the street that runs in front of Oroville High School and the Oroville City Elementary School District administrative offices.

The proposed project includes improving the sidewalks by widening them to accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, strollers and wheelchairs as well as the installation of ADA corners and high-visibility crosswalks. Improvements to curbs, gutters and storm water conveyance are also included in the project as are street resurfacing and striping.

“The existing sidewalks are very narrow, about 4-feet wide, with utilities in them,” said Mayo. “The conceptual plan calls for widening the sidewalk on one side to 6 feet and on the other side to 8 feet.”

The Table Mountain Boulevard project will start just north of the Montgomery Street roundabout and end at County Center Drive. This project will include enhanced pedestrian and bike lane facilities in conjunction with eliminating sidewalk gaps and improved storm water conveyance.

“These will be amazing improvements, giving us our first north south corridor for pedestrians and bikes into the downtown,” said Mayo. “It’s a chance to reimagine that entire corridor, beautifying it and bringing a modern look for people as they safely move about. It’s a very exciting project that will bring the community closer together.”

The estimated cost of the Washington Avenue and Table Mountain Boulevard projects in $15 million. The city is seeking funding through a grant application to the California Transportation Commission in partnership with the Butte County Association of Governments.

“It will be at least two years before the work starts,” said Mayo. “Securing the grant is one piece but the engineering is the bigger piece. There’s a lot of work to be done before the construction starts.”

There will be traffic control and potential delays of up to 15 minutes during work hours.

Yet, Wednesday morning, gazing around the cavernous hangar his company now occupies at Chico Regional Airport, he told some 60 community members and employees that he found the space daunting.

“It’s intimidating looking into an empty hangar and figuring out how to make it a vibrant place to work,” Niemann said at a ribbon-cutting hosted by city officials. “We think it’s a great move forward for us.”

The Chico Airport Commission in January signed off on a five-year lease that, with extensions, could run 15 years for the facility at 77 Piper Ave., in the block north of the airport terminal. The agreement also includes an option to purchase a parcel south of the terminal should the city decide to sell. Just since embarking on expansion, Niemann said, Spokane-based AeroFlite has grown from 170 employees to 213.

“I think it really bolsters the local economy,” Erik Gustafson, the Public Works director who oversees airport operations, said after the ceremony. “They have a very impressive fleet of both amphibious and land-based aircraft, and they’re going to be supporting that fleet from this facility. That’s highly skilled workers in the aviation industry; we love to see those jobs come and grow in Chico. They have a training augment, too, where they have a large component of not only their pilots but pilots from other organizations, too.

“We’re really excited to have them here — not only an active tenant but a very expansive, intensive use of the facility here — with hopes that they grow their business.”

AeroFlite already had roots before choosing Chico as the place to expand from Washington state into California. Working with Cal Fire’s airbase in the north state, the firm landed planes at the airport for fuel and servicing by Northgate Aviation. That led AeroFlite to conduct training here for the past four years; apropos of this, the upstairs section of the hangar features a room for virtual-reality scenarios.

Linkage

Among the locations the company considered was McClellan Airport in Sacramento. So, why Chico?

“It’s the community and the similarity to Spokane,” Niemann replied. “There’s a tie-in with the outdoors, with nature, with the things I know my employees already enjoy. It’s the comfort of being here of what the community has to offer.

“It’s relatively easy to get to. I know we don’t have air service (for commercial travel) here — but it’s easy to move people in and out, and we get great service.”

In his remarks welcoming AeroFlite, Mayor Andrew Coolidge addressed the prospect of a passenger carrier coming to Chico.

“I want those flights!” he told attendees — a group that included City Manager Mark Sorensen, Police Chief Billy Aldridge, Airport Commissioners Mike Antolock and Raul Hernandez, and field representatives from the offices of Congressman Doug LaMalfa and State Senator Brian Dahle.

“We’re working on it,” the mayor continued, “and this helps.”

With Airport Manager Tom Bahr as the point person, the city is in discussions with two airlines and anticipates flights to Los Angeles commencing in late 2025 or early 2026. Niemann confirmed a point raised by Gustafson that AeroFlite would be a frequent flier on the commercial carrier as it repositions pilots — some 70 members of its workforce — around the country.

“The fit was right,” Gustafson recapped, “and we’re very glad AeroFlite chose Chico.”

There was only one small snafu: scissors. No one brought an oversized version typically used for cutting ceremonial ribbons, so Coolidge handed Niemann a pair of office shears. After a few clips, the ribbon glided to the tarmac.

Alaska Airlines flight 1282, on which a door plug blew off the side of the plane shortly after takeoff on January 5, was scheduled to be taken out of service for maintenance the night of the incident, the airline said Tuesday.

Although Alaska Airlines did not say why the plane was set to be taken out of service, the airline told the New York Times, which first reported the scheduled safety check, that the plane was set to be removed from service to investigate two separate warning lights that alerted the crew to a potential pressurization problem on the plane over the 10 days prior to the blowout.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told CNN on January 8 that she was aware the plane had pressurization issues before the door plug blew out, and the safety regulator planned on probing Alaska Airlines about the incident. But the NTSB later clarified that it believed the pressurization warnings were unrelated to the side of the plane blowing out mid-air.

The NTSB said the warning started appearing just weeks after the plane was delivered, in early December, and most recently happened the day before the door plug blowout incident.

Max Tidwell, the vice president for safety and security for Alaska Airlines, told the New York Times that the airline did not believe the indicator lights posed a serious enough problem to take the plane out of service sooner without carrying passengers.

Such deferred maintenance is common and legal, and the plane had made 154 successful flights before the blowout.

In its preliminary investigation, the NTSB found that Boeing probably did not put required bolts in the door plug. The bolts are designed to prevent that part from blowing off the plane.

It’s not clear that an expedited maintenance schedule would have led Alaska Airlines to discover that problem. However, engineers were concerned enough about the warning lights that the airline prevented the plane from carrying passengers on long-haul routes over water in case of emergency, according to The New York Times.

“The U.S. aviation system is the safest in the world because it relies on layers: redundant systems, robust processes and procedures, and the willingness to stop and ensure things are right before every takeoff,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement. “We remain confident in our maintenance and safety actions leading up to the incident. We look forward to continuing our participation in a robust investigation led by the NTSB to ensure something like this never happens again.”

Alaska Airlines’ (ALK) stock fell marginally in after-hours trading. The airline has largely avoided heavy scrutiny in the incident as blame has largely been laid on Boeing following the preliminary results of the probe. Boeing has been subject to congressional hearings, production and delivery delays, multiple federal investigations — including a criminal probe — and a stock that has lost more than a quarter of its value this year, shaving more than $40 billion off the company’s market valuation.

Although the revelation that the plane was scheduled for service the same day as the blowout does not necessarily suggest any wrongdoing by Alaska Airlines, it does raise further concerns about policies and regulations surrounding maintenance of America’s fleet of aircraft.

Hosted by the Chico Corsa Cycling Club and Performance Cycling after a four-year hiatus, the race entails an all-day closure of downtown Chico’s main thoroughfare for an elbow to elbow competition of speed.

“I describe it as Nascar on bicycles,” said Shawn Hughes, race director and president of Chico Corsa Cycling Club.

Hughes said downtown bicycle racing goes beyond his years in Chico with the Coor’s Classic in the ’70s, and he remembers stumbling upon cyclists racing downtown when he was in college in the ’80s.

What’s known as the Chico Stage Race began around 2010, which grew to become the largest attended tour in California in 2019 before COVID-19 lockdowns postponed the event, according to Hughes.

On Sunday, the Chico Stage Race will only consist of a criterium race, as opposed to previous years when the event spanned from Friday to Sunday in a variety of race types and locations throughout Butte County.

Hughes said a new racing commission cohort is being trained in preparation for a full scale event planned for 2025.

In accordance, parts of streets in downtown Chico are set to close 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. Sunday for the race.

Main Street and Broadway between Second and Seventh streets will be closed; Wall and Salem streets will close between Second and Fourth Streets.

The first race begins at 8:30 a.m. and the final race at 7 p.m. Closed streets are scheduled to open 9 p.m.

A kids bicycle race around the City Plaza is scheduled at 12:30 p.m. and is open to the public, Hughes said. Parents may register their child before the event.

After the kids race, Fleet Feet will host the Downtown Mile foot race starting at Second Street and Broadway and ending at the Fleet Feet storefront.

A block party will be hosted by Greenline Bikes during the race at 515 Main St.

Further details and registration may be found at chicostagerace.org.

Dakari Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office said parts of the north valley can expect up to a quarter of an inch including areas like Oroville, Chico, Orland and Red Bluff with that amount potentially getting higher into the foothills in places like Paradise.

“We’re looking at light stuff on Saturday followed by spotty rain Sunday through Tuesday,” Anderson said.

Any rain on Saturday is expected to be light with the chance of showers starting Sunday along with the potential for wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour.

Anderson said the heaviest rain is expected for Sunday afternoon into the evening and then again Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

Snow levels, meanwhile, are still as low as 4,500 feet.

On Wednesday, the storm is forecasted to have cleared off leaving sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. After that, next week has the potential to warm back up after the storm.

In response to the low snow level and icy conditions, the National Weather Service issued a notice saying that there is a possibility for traffic delays and slick roads through mountain roadways as well as chain controls, specifically Sunday through Tuesday night.

Between choosing two car lanes or three; bi-directional or one way bike lanes; and other factors, the councilors — with Tom van Overbeek recused and Deepika Tandon absent — gave direction on a number of considerations for how downtown will look before the city moves forward with grant opportunities.

Director of Public Works Engineering Brendan Ottoboni said the project presents the city with an opportunity to replace aging utilities, like the city’s 70- to 100-year-old sewage lines, while rebuilding the downtown corridor.

“It’s important we get this right,” Ottoboni said. “It’s going to have weight for generations to come.”

Current proposed designs are drawn from public input sessions, the city’s 2030 general plan; its climate action plan, bikeway plan, Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan and other downtown plans that have been created in past years.

Given the project’s emphasis on protected bicycle lanes, Ottoboni cited pedestrian crash data that 93 people were hit by drivers from 2010 to 2020; two of those crashes were fatal.

“A lot of planning documents that have gone into this in the decades. … It’s our job to come up with the best ideas,” Ottoboni said. “There’s 82 feet from building face to building face; we’re not going to get everything we want.”

Councilors gave direction to staff on five items: sidewalk vaults into businesses, street trees, bike lane buffers, considerations for Second, Third and Fourth streets; and the main features on Main Street and Broadway.

Vaults

About 24 vaults downtown give sidewalk access to businesses, and were created before ADA standardization. Ottoboni said they are critical to operations for some business owners, and cost around $6,000 to $10,000 to replace and license.

The council voted 4-1 with a no from councilor Addison Winslow on a motion to continue their use, and to replace the vaults if business owners are interested or cover them otherwise.

Councilor Sean Morgan made a motion that Chico will pay for half of the replacement because “it’s not super fair to pay for something you have. But if we offer to pay for all of them, everyone’s going to say ‘yes I want it’ when they don’t all want it.”

Street trees

Street trees have damaged parts of sidewalks downtown, and the council deliberated to either replace them with native species inside a tree box paired with lighting, grating and a root barrier; or to keep existing trees and pour new concrete around them.

Mayor Andrew Coolidge held concern that new trees would be smaller and would take years to grow in, and that Chico would lose trees that add diversity and “uniqueness” to downtown. Councilors Winslow and Casey Reynolds suggested keeping legacy trees as much as possible.

Councilors voted 5-0 to proceed with a combination of keeping legacy trees where cost effective, and replacing the rest with the new proposed features.

Bike lane buffer

A safety buffer three to five feet wide protecting bicycle lanes from car lanes was considered in three flavors: a wrought iron fence, planter boxes or a landscaping strip.

Morgan preferred the landscaping strip and said planter boxes will block car doors from opening. Councilor Dale Bennett said the landscaping strip would be a “headache for somebody to take care of,” and that the wrought iron fence would be “once and done.” However, Councilor Casey Reynolds said the fence would block car passengers from accessing the sidewalk, and Winslow said the fence would be “hostile to human activity.”

An initial motion to choose planter boxes by Morgan failed with three no votes from Winslow, Coolidge and Bennett.

Coolidge, feeling creative after Winslow suggested an opportunity for another row of trees, motioned for landscaping mixed with trees. “An extra row of trees would look gorgeous,” Coolidge said. His motion passed 3-2 with no votes from Bennett and Morgan.

Second, Third, Fourth

Part of Tuesday’s consideration was whether or not to include Second, Third and Fourth streets in the city’s plan for bicycle lane improvements, “road dieting” reducing driving lanes from three to two; and removing some parking.

Winslow said he thinks bikeway connections on Third and Fourth streets, between lower Bidwell Park and downtown, is “one the most beautiful aspects of this project” that expands safe connectivity in the corridor of the city.

“If you can access the park safely on your bike, then you’d be able to go all the way downtown; all the way up The Esplanade; all the way out to the airport actually,” Winslow said.

Bennett said he doesn’t like the thought of losing business parking on those streets, and the scenario of a delivery truck blocking one of the two lanes. Coolidge and Reynolds shared the same concern.

“While it’s certainly admirable to improve bicycle safety … I would like to see this reworked such that we maintain the traffic flow and the stalls and try and work something else out regarding the bike situation,” Bennett said.

Morgan said he can’t fathom the side streets being one lane wide, and made a motion to keep bicycle safety improvements to Fourth Street only, which passed 4-1 with a no from Winslow.

Main Street, Broadway

The main course for the evening was Chico’s iconic Main Street and Broadway, and councilors had to make a major decision to keep it three lanes wide or reduce it to two and possibly remove 93 parking spaces.

Councilors also deliberated to have a single two-way bicycle lane on Main Street; or two one-way lanes on both Main and Broadway.

There was no consensus. Morgan said he would never vote to add bicycle lanes on the two streets and requested city staff keep it “as Chico as possible.” Winslow discussed the opportunity for transport grants, and said he did not feel the same as other councilors about losing parking. Reynolds requested staff go back to the drawing board and “quickly bring them back.”

Ottoboni said he would bring back four to five options that prioritize each of the elements presented.