This is a recap of the history of the Max Lenail Memorial Bridge project at the San Diego River Crossing between June 2021 and June 2025. This is a disappointing story, as the project has stopped without the bridge completed.

Time is a Thief

The project took an enormous amount of time. We slogged through 2022 and 2023. One challenge: borings. Digging at the proposed location, extracting soil samples, and assessing the depth, composition, and stability of the soil, were all essential aspects of the geotechnical planning for the project. It took ten months to even get authorization to do borings at the site.


We got sidetracked by “analysis paralysis” over the northern edge of the river. As we could not cross the river, and touch the water during the work, we would have to bring labor and equipment from the northern access road, which had been left in disrepair and could not accommodate this kind of traffic. We had to document every inch of the northern access road, and how it should be repaired, for use in the project. (The southern edge was easily accessible with a short service road from the Jackson Drive parking lot).


Every milestone seemed like a mirage, reachable yet elusive. In November 2022, a team status showed that we were getting close to an assessment under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); whether we needed an Environmental Impact Review (EIR) or could obtain a much simpler Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND). This was still not resolved in 2025.


Every time we presented a completed study, we were foiled, often unexpectedly. Anyone in the City of San Diego could stall the project, yet it seemed no single employee could vet and certify a milestone.
To keep our supporters informed, we posted biannual updates to www.bridgeformax.com under “News”.

Mushrooming Costs

These constant delays contributed to a spike in costs. After we hired construction firm Flatiron, an experienced builder of bridges in the San Diego region, in the fall of 2024, the budget almost doubled. Needing a high bridge that could withstand a 100-year flood added to bridge bulk, scale, and structural complexity. Materials, labor, and overhead costs ballooned – some of that driven by Trump’s tariffs on steel, concrete, and wood products. The City requested that the bridge, located in the middle of a wilderness, be fully ADA compliant – a nonsensical requirement.


An additional cost driver was the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, always in opposition to the bridge, discovering a potentially endangered bumblebee at the site, and thus mandating extensive biological studies of the insect’s presence, lifestyle, and habits; thus adding time and cost.
We proposed mitigation strategies for the bridge’s impact on fauna and flora, but received no useful feedback or guidance on those.

Bureaucracy – The Nature of the Beast

This quote from historian Yuval Noah Harari resonates:
“As bureaucracies accumulate power they become immune to their own mistakes. Instead of changing their stories to fit reality; they can change reality to fit their stories. In the end, external reality matches their bureaucratic fantasies, but only because they forced reality to do so.”


The City of San Diego agencies are opaque and diffuse. We dealt with dozens of people, who withdrew from the project without clear explanation, and others who never really committed. They created their own narratives, but never stood by them. The City billed us for its time on the project, to pay for people who were never impactful in moving the project forward.

Navigating the decision-making process

We had to advocate, inform, and get approval from numerous agencies, including: The Mission Trails Regional Park Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), a group of local folks who make recommendations on Park maintenance and improvements. The Max Lenail Memorial Bridge was on the agenda (often the first topic of discussion) at twenty-five consecutive CAC meetings, with either me, or a member of our team, presenting. They approved the project and the design. The CAC Chair summoned the City Development Services staff to the CAC meeting to hear our update and respond to it, but they were a perennial no-show (with one exception in 2023).


The Mission Trails Regional Park Task Force, a body with some executive authority, chaired by local Councilmember Raul Campillo, who takes CAC recommendations under consideration. The Max Lenail Memorial Bridge was presented and discussed at most Task Force meetings. The Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, really “Friends of the Park”, who raise money for, and organize activities in, the Park. They sit in on, and present at, both CAC and Task Force meetings. We communicated with the Foundation on a weekly, often daily, basis for more than four years. I went on a field trip to the site with the board of the Foundation.


And lastly, City of San Diego Parks & Rec / Open Space, the public agency that employs the Park rangers and effectively runs Park operations. This “joint powers authority” structure favors inertia and the status quo; and hobbles decision-making. One example was the much-needed dredging of the water pooling against the Old Mission Dam. The sediment had piled up over the years – and many seasonal floods – and a break in the dam was a growing and serious risk. It took years for the authorities to move forward with dredging, which turned out to be easy and inexpensive.

We co-sponsored a capstone project at San Diego State University (SDSU) for the design and engineering of the bridge. We built a rapport with Native American tribes, including the Campo Band of Mission Indians, to get their approval and blessing on the project. We stayed close to conservation groups, such as the San Diego River Park Foundation, to take their recommendations into account.


During these four-and-a-half years, we continued to raise funds eagerly. We did about 15 TV news interviews, and contributed to several written press stories, including two fine stories in Outside Magazine, and several profiles in the San Diego Foundation newsletter. We applied for grants from private San Diego foundations and family offices. We had some amazing advocates and supporters in the media community, including Melissa Mecija, Vanessa Van Hyfte, Alexandra Lai, Dryw Keltz, and Claire Trageser. The San Diego Mountain Biking Association (SDMBA) was a steadfast ally.

Finally, a breakthrough

We picked a final bridge design in January 2024 when it became clear we had outgrown the basic railroad-style truss design. Mid-2024 to March 2025 was a golden time. The compelling new design, adopted with the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, offered an unobstructed field-of-view. I met with the City’s Development Services Department in their downtown offices, including director Elyse Lowe and the project manager. They stated that construction in 2025 was eminently possible, and pledged to assist. We retained a professional project manager to act as “owner’s rep” as the project was growing more hands-on by the day. We selected the construction firm Flatiron after a thorough selection process.
The nature of discussions during team meetings changed dramatically – from slogging with the City to actively planning for site readiness and construction. In January 2025, I went to San Diego twice to get approvals from local Community Planning Groups in Tierrasanta and Navajo. I was encouraged by local allies and friends during my presentations. The community groups warmed my heart with their universal and enthusiastic support for the bridge.

Return to reality

In November 2024, we heard that the resource agencies, such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, were in total opposition to the Max Lenail Memorial Bridge. We walked into a trap on March 21, 2025 when we showed up to a meeting with 20+ bureaucrats from various city, county, state, and federal agencies. One bureaucrat admitted in front of everyone on the call that their review process is “inhumane”. The agencies claimed they had never been briefed by the City’s Development Services Department, and were ignorant of the project. This was not true. The State Fish & Wildlife bureaucrats questioned the need for a bridge in the first place. They then dismissed the architectural design of the bridge, and demanded a different one, something completely beyond their purview, according to senior City officials. The endangered bumblebee was an expedient way to stall things, and another species
would likely be invoked later to stall more.


In April 2025, still facing significant bureaucratic hurdles, we realized that we would not be able to break ground in September 2025 as we’d hoped for.

Where We Are Today

Fast forward: On June 1, 2025, I had to issue a stop-work-order to the project team. We were hoping to refocus our target toward mobilization in 2026. By this point we had burned through $1 million of private funding – our entire Max Lenail Memorial Bridge fund at the San Diego Foundation – to pay for all the studies and reports to get two-thirds of the way towards obtaining the three key permits: site development, grading, and building permits. We would need another $500K, and six to nine months, to obtain the permits. The Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation took the unexpected and unfortunate decision to shelve the $1.5 million State grant for the bridge, arguing that a contractual provision prevented us from accessing the funds.


It was time to put the project on a hard hold. Once again, bureaucracy, red tape, and regulations had prevailed over the public interest and progress of a much-needed infrastructure project in California.

The Future

While the Max Lenail Memorial Bridge was a victim of the byzantine bureaucracy of the City of San Diego, there is some hope in California. The “Abundance Movement”, which is lobbying for more investment in infrastructure, is gaining ground. The recent deep reform of CEQA, championed and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, is a start. CEQA has become weaponized to block and delay all kinds of much-needed projects, from energy and water projects, to bike lanes, food pantries, and student housing. It has stalled construction of new homes, keeping housing supply low and real-estate prices sky-high. The CEQA reform exempts most projects in parks from CEQA review – sadly too late for the Max Lenail Memorial Bridge.


The San Diego River Crossing will remain a highly popular and perilous spot. It is part of the default loop through the Park, between the Fortunas and the Visitor Center and Jackson Drive parking lot. It is crossed by hundreds of hikers in both directions on any given day. Many struggle, slip, and fall while crossing. Some turn back. After Max died in 2021, the riverbed went bone dry. These past two years, the riverbed was never dry, and water was running for most of the year. The recent trend toward extreme weather – torrential rains, flash floods- makes the Crossing even more unpredictable.

The City has put up a bogus sign stating that “This Crossing is condemned” to avoid liability. A pedestrian bridge has been part of the Park’s Master Plan for decades. Yet the Park authorities chose instead to build a $7 million Ranger Station, complete with elaborate art, which was inaugurated in 2020 (and closed by COVID for two years). This represents a cost of roughly $1 million per Ranger. The Ranger Station is of zero benefit to the public, underused, and sitting empty most of the time. A bridge could have been built for a lot less.


We are so grateful to the very many who supported us during this long endeavor, cheered for us, and helped us along the way. We hope another team will pick up the baton – and leverage our large body of work – to finish the project.

-Ben Lenail