Art sculptures now adorn Sacramento's Del Rio Trail as multi-million-dollar bridge remains unfixed
SACRAMENTO — The Del Rio Trail that runs through south Sacramento now has more than a half-dozen new public art sculptures on display.
However, as we first told you in September, the trail's multi-million dollar bridge has never opened due to safety concerns, and now the city's original deadline to come up with a solution has been missed.
The trail officially opened in May, but now, six months later, one of its main features remains fenced off and unusable.
As CBS13 first reported in September, city inspectors say the multi-million dollar bridge across Interstate 5 was built unsafe and needs to be torn down.
Adam Frank created Wayfinder — one of the new public art pieces — and is disappointed the full trail is not yet open.
"These projects are hard and they're huge and there's so many moving parts to them, nothing can be perfect," he said.
City documents accuse the bridge builder — Mountain Methods, Incorporated — of using lightweight concrete and rebar. The city gave the builder until the end of September to come up with a demolition plan, but we learned that the company asked for a time extension and both sides have hired attorneys.
"Part of it is also these are safety things that went wrong and it's good that we caught them," Frank said.
As for the new outdoor artwork, it's now attracting a lot of attention from a floating pink house made from spinners that move with the wind to giant birdhouses atop steel gantries.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he doesn't know when the bridge will be fixed, but there's still a lot of the trail left to explore.
"What we've built and what we've created is already creating a lot of additional happiness and experience for the people of Sacramento, and we'll get that part done, too," Steinberg said.
Saturday morning, people can go out to the trail from 10 a.m. to noon and meet the artists who created the new sculptures.