Caltrans is moving forward with replacing the Whiskey Creek Bridge along State Route 299 in Shasta County, a corridor that has connected communities in the region for more than six decades. The existing structure and highway alignment date to a 1960 relocation project tied to the construction of Whiskeytown Dam.

The replacement work will bring several modern upgrades to the bridge, which sits roughly 11 miles west of Redding along a two-lane expressway stretch of SR-299.

The original corridor was built after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Whiskeytown Dam project required relocating about five miles of highway, since the reservoir would inundate the original townsite and old roadway. The reservoir stores 250,000 acre-feet as part of the Central Valley Project.

For contractors, the bridge replacement represents public-works opportunity in Caltrans District 2, adding to the state's ongoing pipeline of structure rehabilitation and highway modernization work in the northern part of the state.