Who Pays to Widen the Ocean-Side Walkway on Cardiff's Lagoon Bridge?

Just south of the San Elijo State Beach campground, Coast Highway 101 crosses the mouth of San Elijo Lagoon on a concrete bridge. It carries two vehicle lanes in each direction, a protected bike lane on each side and a pedestrian walkway along each edge. Walkers favor the west walkway because it has the ocean view. It is also the narrower of the two.

In September, Encinitas formally received an engineering assessment that rates this crossing in "poor" condition. The structural repair has a federal funding path. A wider walkway does not, so if Cardiff wants more room on the ocean side, the money has to come from the city.

What "Poor" Means on This Bridge

The city hired Kleinfelder, Inc. in January with a $270,000 contract to evaluate all 46 Encinitas bridges and draft a 10-year repair plan. The firm looked at nine conventional bridges, 11 culvert structures and 26 pedestrian-only structures. Inspections ran from February through April 2026, and the final report was completed in August.

In the city's inventory, this crossing is conventional bridge No. 5, "Hwy 101 over San Elijo Lagoon," between Chesterfield Drive and Ocean Street. It rated "poor" on four separate elements: deck, superstructure, substructure and railing. Only one other structure in the city scored that low, a pedestrian bridge over a drainage swale at Leucadia Oaks Park.

Kleinfelder engineer Kelly Burnell told the City Council that the bridge shows chipped concrete and rusting rebar, but "poor doesn't mean unsafe," according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. The rating means the bridge needs repair work. It also makes the bridge eligible for a Federal Highway Administration funding program.

The city's staff report for the September 9, 2026 council meeting calls this bridge "the most significant structural concern" among the 46. It also says the bridge "has already begun the design phase for rehabilitation." A California State Parks notice posted to CEQA Net on June 25, 2026 describes the topographic surveying needed to support the city's engineering design, including mapping of structural elements, roadway features, utilities and property boundaries.

Two Bridges Joined Side by Side

The bridge's history explains why the ocean-side walkway raises its own set of questions. A June 2023 city staff report describes a reinforced-concrete pile bridge built in 1934, originally 183 feet long and 40 feet wide. In 1953 it was widened on the west side, adding 31 feet of width on a section 215 feet long. That means the walkway people use for the ocean view runs along the 1953 addition, not the original 1934 span.

The bridge has also needed several rounds of work in recent decades:

The 2022 abutment job was awarded for $248,041, with a not-to-exceed amount of $322,453. These were spot fixes made one problem at a time. The rehabilitation now in design is a single project for the whole structure, and that is why the question of what it includes matters now.

Repair Gets Grant Money. A Wider Walkway Doesn't.

The funding comes from the Highway Bridge Program. The Federal Highway Administration funds it, and Caltrans Local Assistance administers it. According to the city's assessment, the program covers most eligible design, permitting, right-of-way, utility and construction costs, and local agencies usually pay about 20%.

Engineering Director Dan Nutter told the council that the big issue is what counts as "repair" and what counts as "betterment." The city has to settle the project's scope with Caltrans. "This is an arduous process," Nutter said, as reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune. In the paper's account, widening the narrow pedestrian walkway would be an improvement, and Encinitas would have to pay its full cost.

Councilmember Joy Lyndes represents the Cardiff area that includes the bridge. She told the council that residents will want betterments because so many pedestrians and cyclists cross it every day, and that improvements should be done together with the repair. In the Union-Tribune's report, she put it this way:

"We're probably never going to have a better opportunity."

The September 9 agenda item asked the council only to receive and file the assessment, and the staff report lists no fiscal impact from that step. Nothing about the walkway has been decided yet. The 2023 report also says any future rehabilitation will need discretionary development permits and environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. That review is still ahead, so the scope question will come back to the city again before construction starts.

The City's Share Has Already Grown

The cost of the "repair only" version keeps rising, and that affects how much room the budget has left for a wider walkway. Here is how the estimates of the city's match have changed:

All three are estimates, and the 2026 assessment calls its own figures "preliminary in nature." Even so, the direction is clear. In a little over three years, the city's expected share for the repair alone roughly doubled. The $3.8 million match for this one bridge is most of the $5.9 million 10-year program the city has drawn up for its high- and medium-priority bridges, as The Coast News also reported. Any widening would come on top of that number, and no cost for it has been published.

Nutter also said construction could be about five years away. That leaves several budget cycles for the city to decide whether to pay for a wider walkway, and Encinitas' five-year Capital Improvement Program is where the bridge money will show up.

What the Walkway Connects

The walkway matters because of what sits at each end. At the north end is San Elijo State Beach, whose campground at 2050 S Coast Hwy 101 sits on a beach that runs three-quarters of a mile north from the lagoon entrance channel. South of the inlet is the line of oceanfront restaurants often called Restaurant Row:

• Pacific Coast Grill, 2526 S. Coast Hwy 101
• Chart House, 2588 South Coast Highway 101
• Ki's Restaurant, 2591 S. Coast Hwy
• Cardiff Beach Bar @ Tower 13, 2633 S Coast Hwy 101
• Las Olas, 2655 South Coast Highway

Past the restaurants is Cardiff State Beach. California State Parks calls Cardiff Reef a popular surf spot, says parking is busy year-round, and lists pay machines at the Cardiff Reef and Seaside lots with a vehicle day-use fee of $12 to $25.

The lagoon itself sits directly under the walkway. In April 2018, crews dug sand out just east of the Coast Highway 101 bridge underpass to reopen the tidal channel, part of the restoration Nature Collective documented at the time. For a longer walk on the inland side, the Nature Center Loop starts at 2710 Manchester Ave. It has a bike rack and parking, and the nearest transit stop is Highway 101 and Chesterfield. The reserve has more than nine miles of trails and ten trailheads, open sunrise to sunset.

The repair is already on track. The width of the ocean-side walkway between the campground and Restaurant Row will depend on what Encinitas decides to pay for during the design years ahead.

The team at Polly Rogers & Associates has followed Cardiff's coastline through decades of projects like this one. Encinitas' choices about the bridge will shape daily routines along this stretch of Coast Highway 101 for years. If you own near the lagoon, or are thinking about a home within walking distance of Restaurant Row, we'd be glad to talk through what this stretch means for your property. Request a Complimentary Market Consultation.