BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – For the past decade from her Bakersfield home, Jennifer Paredes watched construction crews build the Centennial Corridor.
The $1.5 billion interchange connects both sides of Highway 58 from Highway 99. The former used to end abruptly in the middle of Paredes’ neighborhood, causing accidents and traffic jams.
“Where it used to end, it was always busy,” she said. “I think it’s going to offer a lot of relief to a lot of the roads here.”
On Saturday, Paredes and her 11-year-old son were among the first to test out the new freeway infrastructure. Except the family wasn’t driving. Instead, they pedaled the 3-mile route on their bikes, with about 2,500 other cyclists.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” she said, standing next to her son on their mountain bikes. “It’s going to be pretty cool if one day he’s driving on this freeway and he’s going to say, ‘We rode this on our bicycles.’”
The city and organization Blue Zones Project hosted the freeway ride called “Cycle Centennial.”
“Blue zones” are considered longevity hotspots, where residents are believed to live longer and healthier lives. National Geographic fellow Dan Buettner investigated a few of those reported blue zones for the magazine, eventually adapting his findings into a best-selling book, Netflix series and movement.
Nearly two years ago, Bakersfield announced a partnership with Blue Zones, and Saturday’s ride is the latest in a series of events aimed at improving community health.
“What we’re doing with Blue Zones is looking at our environment and trying to push the needle to make it a little more healthy,” said Melissa Rossiter, a spokesperson for the group. “That means working with our city leaders, looking at our infrastructure and making sure it’s safe, not only for motorists but pedestrians and bicyclists.”
Bikes bring emphasis to safety
Bakersfield’s streets are some of the most dangerous for bikers and pedestrians in the nation, ranking among the top-10 metros for fatalities.
The city has implemented a number of policies to help address the concerning statistic, from expanding bike lanes to installing new traffic signals at problematic intersections. A new ad-hoc committee on multimodal transportation and traffic safety is exploring other options, too, according to Bakersfield Vice Mayor Andrae Gonzalez.
“We’re going to continue to pursue this, because we know there are many people here [in Bakersfield] who love to get out and ride a bike. We need to improve our infrastructure so that it’s far safer and far more accessible for many more people to do it,” Gonzalez said while handing out coffee and snacks to cyclists on the overpass early Saturday.
But safety wasn’t a big concern for those completing the ride on Saturday. With the freeway still closed to motorists, families had a chance to ride at their own pace in a not-so-common setting.
Alexander Perez towered above the crowd. The 15-year-old rolled across the corridor on a replica of an 1850’s penny farthing bike with a 50-inch front wheel.
“The uphill gets you,” he explained between heavy panting. “The uphill gets you a lot.”
Corridor’s rocky start
The years leading up to the corridor’s completion weren’t always so whimsical, however.
More than 300 homes and about 120 businesses were displaced by the freeway construction, which tore through the city’s Westpark neighborhood.
While homeowners who were directly in the freeway’s path were eventually compensated to relocate, some told KVPR at the time the memories they lost were priceless.
“I am going to leave a lot of memories that I have in the home that I never anticipated that I’d have to leave behind,” Isabelle Boyd shared to a KVPR reporter, ahead of the planned demolition of her home. “It’s a financial stressor, but you are also saying goodbye to a life that you had established and feel comfortable in a home that represented you.”
Local leaders blamed a ban on new highway construction in the 1970s that prevented a Highway 58 extension at the time, isolating Bakersfield from the interstate system. Now, drivers coming down the mountain from Tehachapi can bypass surface streets and link directly to Highway 99 and Interstate 5.
“Centennial Corridor will allow delivery trucks and other long-distance shipping vehicles to travel through the area much easier and more quickly, avoiding the need to use local roadways,” said former Congressman Bill Thomas at a ribbon-cutting ceremony held last week.
Thomas served as chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means and brought more than $500 million to the district to jumpstart the project during his final term in 2005.
But as the road gets ready to welcome vehicles, drivers will soon be able to decide for themselves whether the tradeoff and expense was worth it. A CalTrans spokesperson says the freeway is expected to officially open to motorists in the coming weeks.
