June 12, 2026
Old Bones, New Vision: The Glendale-Hyperion Bridge
How a historic bridge is being rebuilt to connect the neighborhoods it divides
Article by Jared Lynch, Project Engineer
Standing at the edge of the Los Angeles River, looking up at the century-old arches of the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, I feel the weight of what this structure has meant to the neighborhoods around it and what it still needs to provide into the future.
For the communities of Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and Atwater Village, the bridge has long been as much a barrier as a connection. With several infrastructure elements in need of repair and rehabilitation, the need presented itself. That finally changed in February of 2026, and the groundbreaking ceremony made clear just how long these communities have been waiting for it.
Groundbreakings are often ceremonial, but this one marked something more. Backed by full community support, we are moving forward together; delivering a safe pedestrian path, improved merging across three lanes of traffic, and restoring the history of an iconic landmark.
The bridge means something real to daily life here. It is a connection across the I-5 freeway , a means across the LA river, but also serves as an essential path to schools while linking neighborhoods and cities.
Why This Bridge, Why Now
The Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct Complex was completed in 1929 and has been designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. Five bridges span the corridor over I-5, the Los Angeles River, and Riverside Drive. For nearly a century, age, seismic vulnerability, and increasing traffic demands have pushed the structure beyond the point where maintenance alone can no longer ensure its long-term performance.
The project addresses every dimension of the corridor — seismic safety, historic preservation, pedestrian access, multimodal connectivity, and traffic operations. The project will:
- Deliver a comprehensive seismic retrofit across all structures, bringing them up to current safety standards and improving their resilience during a major earthquake.
- Build an ADA-compliant pedestrian shoulder on the west side of Hyperion Avenue, add a signalized crossing for pedestrians, and install bike lanes on both sides of the avenue to improve safety and accessibility.
- Widen the Glendale Boulevard bridges to accommodate pedestrian shoulders and improve mobility. The project will also realign the I-5 northbound off-ramp, eliminating the current need for drivers to cross multiple lanes to make a U-turn and providing direct eastbound and westbound access along Glendale Boulevard.
- Create direct connections to the River Way and install stormwater capture infrastructure that supports long-term environmental sustainability.
- Preserve the bridge's defining historic character by retaining the iconic pylons that mark the corridor and the arches spanning I-5.
- Remove only the amount of concrete that is structurally necessary to complete the seismic improvements.
- Store removed historic light fixtures at a City of Los Angeles facility for long-term preservation and potential future use.
The goal is to make the bridge look like its original self again: restored in character, strengthened for the next century, and built to serve everyone who crosses it.
The Hardest Part No One Sees
My role on this project is as office engineer, managing submittals, coordinating communications with the owner, bringing on new craft hires, and working through the exhibits and workplan that keep a project of this complexity organized. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the groundbreaking ceremony represents the tip of an enormous amount of essential and rewarding work.
The most complex challenge in reaching this point was stakeholder coordination, specifically the water diversion plan. Any work in the Los Angeles River requires a detailed and approved strategy for managing water flow during construction activates. Developing, submitting, reviewing, and ultimately securing approval for that plan became a top project priority and required close coordination across multiple agencies. It was a true group effort, reflecting the strong partnerships that will carry us forward as we execute and deliver this project.
What made the difference was collaboration with adjacent project teams who had already navigated the same body of water. When they shared their approved permits and diversion approach, we gained something invaluable: visibility into what the approval process actually looks like in practice. That is collaboration at its finest: one project team passing experience to another is exactly how we maintain momentum on complex infrastructure work.
Utility coordination has been similarly complex. We are managing Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), Caltrans, AT&T, and sewer and manhole infrastructure simultaneously, each with its own schedule, requirements, and approval chain. We keep every stakeholder aligned so that no single workstream becomes a bottleneck.
What Comes Next
Construction will take five years with completion anticipated in early 2031.
