Letter to the Editor:
Some basic CAD-drawn images of a teaser steel structure, a so-called “Signature Arch Bridge”, were presented during the public Burbank Infrastructure Oversight Board Meeting held on 10/22/2026 at City Hall, a building that is essentially the center of Burbank’s “Media Capital of the World” hub!
More than 25 years into the 21st Century, vehicular bridges are still vital facilities to enable transportation. Even so, many bridge functions have already been supplanted by vastly complex electronic digital systems, including communications and zoomy virtual travel. Has the board considered that aspect of any future bridge’s functionality?
How might a steel arch bridge be apprehended by fast-moving mobile viewers passing under as well as on the proposed replacement for the current reinforced concrete roadway? Shall the arches be decorated as gigantic mouse ears? Or, perhaps, painted a yellowish “gold” to resemble a fast food chain advertisement landmark?
What I am raising is an obvious question, and so far unanswered, posed by the Infrastructure Oversight Board itself. What’s Burbank’s Signature? Besides poor quality CAD images, the members of the Board bandied a lot of jargon, which if questioned by Burbankers, will be found empty of real-world meaning! In other words, a standard sales-pitch given by inexperienced planners undertaking their jobs with youthful vigor but who are utterly lacking in tasteful solidity and future-oriented imagination.
Richard B. Cathcart
Burbank
Burbank
